EMMANUEL MACRON TOUR IN AFRICA

THE DIFFICULTY FOR FRANCE TO FIND

A POST FRANCE-AFRICA POSITION

No country in the Sahel is on the program, while French troops have just left Mali and ended their mission in Burkina Faso after years of fighting terrorist groups. "This trip was therefore designed as an illustration of the President of the Republic's desire to go to the end of the change of posture and the end of the change in software that he had wished to initiate from 2017", explains the Elysée.

"Responding to a request for partnership" with "a new approach" in Africa, a major player in world issues: such is the ambition displayed by Emmanuel Macron, who presented on Monday his vision of relations with a continent where France is losing influence for the benefit of powers like China and Russia, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.

The end of the “Françafrique” era

The red thread of his African tour was the desire to turn the page on "Françafrique" definitively, with its opaque practices and its networks of influence inherited from colonialism, and to set up a new "software", based on "the humility" and pragmatic partnerships, from environmental protection to health.

"This age of Françafrique is over," he said Thursday from Libreville, which has long embodied these excesses under the presidency of Omar Bongo.

In Gabon as elsewhere, France is a neutral interlocutor", he insisted, while the Gabonese opposition accused him of supporting President Ali Bongo Ondimba, son and successor of Omar Bongo, in the midst of election year, ruling out any risk of interference and asserting that France was now a "neutral interlocutor".

This speech comes as the French army definitively left Burkina Faso last Saturday, only a few months after having already been ejected from Mali. In several African countries, the refrain "France clears" has been taken up by the populations.

The "made in Africa" ​​in Angola

France has a long-standing presence in the oil sector in Angola, but Emmanuel Macron's visit is an opportunity to explore collaborations in other sectors, including agreements reached to strengthen the country's "climate resilience". Angolan agriculture or supporting its coffee sector. Indeed, Angola wishes to diversify its economy, which is currently totally dependent on the oil sector, and above all to guarantee its food security in a country that imports a lot. France has therefore made a commitment to the agricultural sector, in particular with aid from the French Development Agency (AFD) of 200 million euros for a climate resilience programme.

"It corresponds to the idea that I have of the economic partnership between the African continent and France", explained the French head of state in front of a hundred participants. Namely "responding to the challenges of Angola with the actors who are ours, the solutions which are ours, rather than coming and dumping ready-made solutions, and doing so by defending our interests on both sides in a respectful but determined"

It is a "food sovereignty strategy in which we believe for the African continent", consisting in "building balanced and reciprocal partnerships" and developing "'made in Africa' which must become a reference", he added. he says.

Macron's balancing act in the DRC

French President Emmanuel Macron ended up condemning Rwanda's support for M23.

Everyone must "take responsibility, including Rwanda", he said. Then further: “The open looting of the Democratic Republic of Congo must stop. Neither looting, nor balkanization, nor war, ”said Emmanuel Macron again. “France has constantly condemned the M23 and all those who support it. »

In Kinshasa, the French president above all defended the regional peace plan with the new timetable for ending the crisis, validated at the African Union summit in mid-February. Then, he mentioned the new date of the ceasefire of March 7 at noon.

If this plan fails, the head of state warned that sanctions could then be taken against those who have "responsibilities".

Finally, France announced a contribution of 34 million euros to a humanitarian air bridge to be set up by the European Union with the city of Goma.

France's African policy put to the test

Emmanuel Macron said Monday before his African tour that France was "in the middle of the ford", that Africa was no longer his "backyard" and that he wanted "to build a new balanced, reciprocal and responsible relationship". On the last day of his visit to Africa, Emmanuel Macron spoke words in the form of a declaration of love for Africa: "It's a huge continent of the future with which we have a plural history, if I can use this term, multiple, but which is a continent that I love".

While Emmanuel Macron has tried to find ways to forge a new forward-looking relationship with African countries, this ambition has sometimes come up against a political reality in which the past still has its place.

Moreover coexists in Africa a certain disinterest and a certain estrangement compared to France and what it represents.