– The interests of France in Africa have dwindled to a trickle, now standing at nearly 4%, while those of China, for example, have risen to 18. Macron wanted to rectify the situation…
Jacques Chirac had publicly admitted that France would not be the power it is without Africa. Emmanuel Macron has just, in another way, confirmed this reality. It is because to abandon the Elysée, from last Wednesday until Sunday, in a socially troubled period, where in particular the battle for “its” pension reform is raging, the continent had to represent, for itself and for the economy of France, a much more important, even vital issue. He had even chosen and announced the slogan under which he was going to go to Gabon, Angola, Congo Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo: “co-construction and humility”. He wasn’t wrong…
– A persistent feeling of hostility
Since the dawn of independence in Africa, several voices have already been raised to denounce that the exploitation, even the looting, of resources by the former colonizers continues, with the complicity of leaders who often seek more to maintain themselves power and profit from it, than to set about carrying out major economic and social restructuring, for which they did not have the technical and human resources. Hence the double obligation to solicit the contribution of these same ex-settlers for development works, notwithstanding the binding clauses of the independence protocols. The latter profited from a vast “consenting” market where they procured resources at insignificant counterparts.
France, omnipresent in many African countries, thus drew on their immense wealth and for this to last, it alternated support for “allied” regimes and interventionism where humanitarianism poorly concealed politico-economic interests. This could only lead to resentment, as recognized by François Hollande, in his famous speech where he had, moreover, admitted “the errors” of the past which, precisely, have made Africa sink into poverty, despite its enormous resources.
With the proliferation of militant intelligentsia and voices conscious of the hexagonal grip, with the consent of complicit leaders, a wind of a new African liberation has risen, accompanied by an expansion of this feeling of hostility towards France, whose behavior “in conquered lands” was openly denounced, the “alleged” development aids which come from part of the massive exploitation of the wealth of their countries with, moreover, an open paternalism.
The yoke becoming heavy, on the one hand, and the consequent internal pressure, on the other, several African leaders began to mount inclinations of rebellion, pushing Emmanuel Macron to make amends and to recognize some of the horrors committed by his country. , opening up to the national secret archives. But as the interests of France come first, he did not know – or wanted – until last week, to act with a new approach of equals for a win-win cooperation. The hegemonic dimension had not really been overcome. The feeling of hostility and retaliation, either. The exit of Mali and Burkina Faso is a consequence of this.
– The constraint of changing approach
This is why he was right to place his tour last week in East Africa under the sign of “co-construction and humility”. He has, in fact, realized that the times of conquering arrogance, of one-way profit, through complicit leaders and the mirage of development aid, are over. He also realized that his country had lost a lot, for not realizing it earlier. Changing attitude and proposing a fair win-win partnership was necessary, especially since other powers had hastened to take advantage of the French decline, to establish themselves on the continent and see their cooperation as well as their business there. prosper. To China, Russia and even the United States, we must also add Türkiye and India, firmly established. The share of economic interests of France, which for decades post-independence ruled over most of Africa, has shrunk to 4%, while those of China, for example, have risen. at 18.
It is therefore in humility that Emmanuel Macron undertook his East African journey to regain lost ground, hoping to erase the image of the “devious policeman of the continent” that sticks to his country and, thereby, to mitigate resentment and hostility felt towards him. “Françafrique is no longer appropriate”, he continued, adding that the continent is “a vast theater of competitions”, where he aspired to a presence of France, in a “loyal framework”. What about this tour and what to remember from Macron’s performance and promises?
– Macron is rebuffed in conference
On the plane that took him to Gabon, the first stage of his African trip, the French president had no apprehension of suffering from Ali Bongo, a possible setback or a cold shower, like the one he suffered, when Mohamed VI, the king of Morocco, who rebuffed him, contradicting him: “our relations are neither cordial nor friendly”. If at least the rapprochement with Algeria, the cause of this response, had lasted. Indeed, the Gabonese president and his French counterpart are quite close (they organized the 1st Forest Summit), to the point that the opposition cried out in support of the latter for wanting to give Bongo, for another re-election.
A suspicion taken up by a journalist, during the joint press conference between Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Emmanuel Macron, which the latter wanted to make the culmination of his journey and which frankly turned into a fiasco. It is that to this journalist who asked him if France continued to support certain African leaders and if he was doing it for Ali Bongo, he replied that his country was neutral in the electoral process, adding a sentence which he could have happen: “we’re not here to serve them soup”!
A “raw-speak” which does not suit a president who evoked his counterparts of which, moreover, he was the host and with whom he came to advocate “co-construction and humility”. Decidedly, hunt the natural, it comes back at a gallop. In any case, this sentence does not go in the direction of his speech which preceded his journey and which Thierry Vircoulon, author and expert of the Great Lakes commented: “He understood that he is not in a position of strength . Macron does not put himself above his African counterparts”.
He could also have done without this image where we see him getting out of the official car, at the entrance to a presidential palace, before putting on his jacket. Let it go ? Natural casualness? Perhaps, but observers have detected a shameless gesture that smacks of colonizers.
But it was during the Kinshasa press conference, already mentioned and which he wanted to make the highlight of his East African trip, that he completely lost control. Indeed, following the generalities of the introductory remarks, full of promises and new prospects for partnership, and after the inopportune “soup that France does not intend to serve African leaders”, he will forget himself and tangle his feathers, answering to a journalist, affirming that it is not right to put everything on the back of colonization and that “the wars and the lootings, since 1994, fall on you, because you have not been able to restore your military, security and administrative sovereignty…”. Untimely, it will go further, by reminding, crudely, the Congolese of their lack of recourse to transitional justice…good governance…a credible electoral process…”. Not very sensitive from a president about a host country, where he came not “to say what Africans have to do but that this is how it seems to me that we can co – build”, as mentioned by Alioune Tine, expert at the UN and founder of the think tank “Afrikanjom Center”.
President Félix Tshisekedi will intervene, moreover, by rebuffing him twice, first by asking that we “look at Africans differently, without paternalism and far from the idea of knowing what they need”. He will also remind him of the irregularities that marked the presidential election in the United States and in France in the time of Jacques Chirac without mentioning “American or French compromise”, in reference to Le Drian, the former minister French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who had qualified the ballot for the last presidential election in the DRC as an “African compromise”.
Macron could have spared himself this “game of ping-pong” (as he put it), forgetting the very essence of his state trip and the humility he wanted to subject himself to. As for the co-construction advocated, “let’s wait and see”, as the skeptic Tshisekedi repeated three times, who expected from France, more than aid of 36 million euros and simple support for the peace plan. for North Kivu…
*The opinions expressed in this analysis engage only their author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of Anadolu Agency.