By RFPosted on 12-11-2019Modified on 12-11-2019 at 15:34

The 2nd Paris Peace Forum has just opened at the Grande Halle de La Villette. The goal is to reflect on the challenges of global governance, and the importance of multilateralism. At the rostrum this morning, for the opening ceremony, several African heads of state were alongside their French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.

The president of the DRC was the first head of state to speak on Tuesday 12 November at the forum of the Forum for Peace. Before the participants, including some of his counterparts, Felix Tshisekedi said the importance of winning the peace, and keeping it, for future generations.

The Congolese leader underlined the challenges facing Africa, the problems facing the African continent, particularly at the security level. But Felix Tshisekedi also focused on the DRC's strengths, citing the Congo Basin, the forests, the arable land.

He assures that his country will also be a solution to the problems of our time. For him, Africa must be a solution, an asset, in the future: " Africa, in general, with its geostrategic position, its young population and its natural resources, must stop being a problem for the world but rather become an important link in the solution to the world's problems. "

" New international order "

Emmanuel Macron, host of this meeting, thanked his African counterparts for their presence. He, too, spoke of security threats in Africa. And for the French head of state, as for Felix Tshisekedi, the military solution is necessary, but should not be the only one considered: " We have, in this new international order, to build also new solutions within the framework of United Nations, to better support Africa's security capacity than it does today, but also to help it build on education, health, the environment and of the economy, which are the four solutions for building lasting peace. "

The Forum opens the day after the 101st anniversary of the First World War armistice. In a changing world, in which equilibriums are changing, and where some countries are tempted by a retreat, Emmanuel Macron stressed the importance of international cooperation, not to reproduce the scenarios and mistakes of the past.

Bilateral Macron - Tshisekedi

Breaking the past is also the goal of the two heads of state who meet this afternoon for a bilateral meeting. Emmanuel Macron and Félix Tshisekedi should address a whole series of rather classic themes: the security situation in the East, health, the Francophonie and their differences. We remember the reversals of French diplomacy at the end of the last presidential election.

A page definitively turned, assures one in the entourage of the Congolese president. Still, Felix Tshisekedi has already visited Belgium and the United States, and had dodged France at first.

■ G5 Sahel meets at the Élysée

On the sidelines of this forum, the French president invited Chadian Idriss Deby, Nigerian Mahamadou Issoufou and Malian Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to a working lunch. Officially, there is no agenda for this meeting. The Élysée explains that the French president wanted to take advantage of their presence to make a progress report on the security situation and the G5 Sahel. And no announcement is to be expected from this working lunch.

A meeting that takes place in a particular context, massive attacks have increased in recent weeks in Mali , Burkina Faso. What response then to this deadly escalation? The four heads of state should notably exchange around the announcements made last week by the French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, who declared that special forces would be made available by European countries in Mali, in 2020, in support of the national army.

    On the same subject

    France: Second Peace Forum opens in Paris

    The Paris Peace Forum examines the fight against terrorism

    Peace Forum: 12 countries sign pact on information and democracy

    comments