Bokassa met with Prime Minister Georges Pompidou on 7 July 1966, but the French remained noncommittal in offering their support.
Inspired by Napoleon's coronation in 1804, "Bokassa I" staged his own elaborate ritual inside a large outdoor stadium in Bangui, his capital, on 4 December 1977.
The clearest examples of Sultanism are "Haiti under the Duvaliers, the Dominican Republic under Trujillo, the Central African Republic under Bokassa, the Philippines under Marcos, Romania under Ceauşescu, and North Korea under Kim Il Sung." (Linz & Stepan, Modern Nondemocratic Regimes).