In [quelques] days, the French will still deliver a whisper of comice [Assemblée du peuple dans la Rome antique] through the ballot box to elect the President of the Republic. Who will be anointed among the ten suitors? How do Africans see this competition on April 10 and 24 for the Élysée? For whom will the French from Africa vote?
According to an Ifop pollYoung Africa, the French of African origin will give their voice to the truculent Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of the Insoumis always seduces; he is followed by Macron, the outgoing president. Strangely, even if the other candidates do not exceed 10% of the voting intentions of French people from North African and sub-Saharan immigration, Éric Zemmour and Marine le Pen are stuck with 6% to 9% of voting intentions from this now too visible minority that are the French from Africa.
And, according to many polls, whatever we say, Emmanuel Macron will be in the second round regardless of the candidate, and even has a high probability of winning. What primarily interests Africans in Africa is the policy of the former metropolis on the continent.
Emmanuel Macron’s African record
Pleasant and sankarist speech on November 27, 2017 at Joseph Ki-Zerbo University [le président français avait alors rendu hommage à l’ancien président burkinabé Thomas Sankara], meetings on the G5 in Paris, end of Barkhane in Mali, and in fine, lately, an African antipolitical feeling of France. The double coup d’etat in Mali and the diplomatic and military break between France and Mali are pushing some to want to cut what remains of the umbilical cord. And the three coups that occurred in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso opened up breaches, inciting some to acts of bravado towards France, with benevolence, if not support, as is the case in Mali, of Wagner, the Russian paramilitaries. This is a bit of the legacy of Jupiter’s five-year reign.
What is the ex-French glaze waiting for? [l’Afrique] in terms of African policy on the part of the next French president? A few answers:
1) That this suspicious and obsolete condescension cease;
2 What [la France] stop wanting to lead states by proxy via presidents chosen for the occasion;
3) Finally, that France take into account a continent whose average age of inhabitants is around 18-30 years old – young people whose benchmarks are no longer necessarily the Seine.
In return, Africans will also have to stop behaving “in big spoiled boys”, qu'[ils] stop seeing the shadow of the French in all their flaws, let them stop all politics and get to work, taking the example of South Korea, Singapore or Japan!
In short, a new true political paradigm instead of the pale avatars of Françafrique, that is what Africans want with the next president elected in April.