You say "that is false", but all you have is a quote in French, and a link to a paper in French that most of us can't read. Can you make your case in a more accessible way?
We shouldn't be surprised that most emerging economies have gone from high protectionism to low because they started from a position with high protectionism, and lowered it under advice and pressure from the first world--with very good results. Meanwhile, many countries in South America and Africa are doing things the protectionist way, with very poor results.
French is not particularly inaccessible; nowadays particularly I find Google Translate always at least gives the gist of the meaning. Here's my translation, made by taking Google's and retranslating the bits it took liberties with to be a bit more literal. (Note that I have very little knowledge of French, but this translation was relatively straightforward.)
> In effect, one cannot historically find a single case where a country at an early stage of its economic development would have developed through its opening to international competition. Development has always been attracted [lit. "baited to consent"] with a certain degree of protection that has been diminished as the economy has strengthened sufficiently to face external competition. But such a process extends over many years, not to mention the prerequisite which consists, in the case of the ACP [I believe this is the "États d'Afrique, Caraïbes et Pacifique", parties to the Cotonou Agreement], of the putting in place and operation of regional structures.
IMHO, quote the authentic language and a translation is the best you can do.
FWIW, I actually less trust a translated version from main stream media outlets, which 1) unlikely to report this type of narrative; 2) highly likely to cut out of context and interpret creatively.
We shouldn't be surprised that most emerging economies have gone from high protectionism to low because they started from a position with high protectionism, and lowered it under advice and pressure from the first world--with very good results. Meanwhile, many countries in South America and Africa are doing things the protectionist way, with very poor results.