«President Emmanuel Macron has a vision to rebuild our relationship with the continent, and we are responsible for implementing it. But first you have to understand where he is coming from, which is not easy,” entrusts a framework responsible for meeting the expectations of the French president. But what vision is it? Create new links with Africa with a view to building a common future, via African and French (and European) youth, relying on the African diaspora.
This dialogue with “African youth” began in 2017 with a speech by the Head of State at the University of Ouagadougou, capital of a Burkina Faso where France is no longer welcome. Institutionalized at the Africa-France summit in Montpellier, in October 2021, it is now continuing through a cycle of forums “Our future-Africa-Europe dialogues” organized on the continent by the French Institutes and the Council for monitoring the recommendations of the summit of Montpellier (CSRSM). From Friday February 3 to Sunday February 5, it is Algiers’ turn to host a meeting focused on environmental issues.
“Dream your life in the evening and live your dreams in the morning”
According to one of its organizers, the first edition organized in Johannesburg went completely unnoticed. Only the delegations whose expenses were borne by Paris had made the trip, with only one concrete announcement at stake: the launch of the Foundation for Democracy in Africa, chaired by the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe. The second forum in December in Cameroon, bringing together some 150 young people from civil society, the business world and entrepreneurship, sprinkled with a few Europeans (especially French), focused on the theme of commitment. All under the portrait of a man, Paul Biya, in power for forty years. But that didn’t seem to bother anyone.
A forum which is illustrated by often very agreed remarks on the need to engage on environmental issues, on volunteering, leadership, citizenship in the time of new technologies… With platitudes such as “Dream your life in the evening and live your dreams in the morning”preached by one of the stars of these meetings, the Cameroonian Stéphane Tiki, who resigned from the presidency of the youth of the UMP in 2015 after The chained Duck revealed that he was in an irregular situation. Hearing this former unwavering supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy catechize young Africans so that they adhere to Emmanuel Macron’s vision did not fail to make the audience smile. “It’s all a joke, we’re not fooled. At least we’re having a nice time together.” confides a young French volunteer in Cameroon.
Emergencies to be resolved in the present
The Council for monitoring the recommendations of the Montpellier summit is made up of a dozen young people who, according to one of the speakers, “were trained in prestigious schools and come from backgrounds close to political and economic power. They know each other and engage out of interest in the niche opened up by Macron. Most young people come to make contacts, enrich their address book, circulate their business card and add a line to their CV.. “This judgment is severeanswers an executive of the French Institute. That these young people exchange their contacts is one of the goals we pursue: to create connections between them. »
In Cameroon, the young novelist Ernis, winner of the 2022 Voix d’Afrique literary prize, recalled that, before projecting herself into the future, there were urgent matters to be resolved in the present: unemployment which jumped 6 % in 2021, the history taught at school which does not tell anything about the history of Cameroon and Africa, the university education unsuited to economic reality, the lack of political will to cultivate young people and nurture talents .