What to remember from Emmanuel Macron's speech before his tour in Africa

Europe 1 with AFP 6:37 p.m., February 27, 2023

While he is due to begin a tour of Africa on Wednesday, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron gave a long speech on Monday from the Elysée Palace where he wanted to outline what he believes should be the relations between France and the African continent.

The Head of State covered a wide range of subjects and then answered questions from journalists present on site.

Emmanuel Macron on Monday advocated "humility" and "responsibility" of France's action in Africa, refusing the strategic "competition" imposed according to him by those who settle there with "their armies, their mercenaries ".

"Many would like to incite us to enter into a competition, which for my part I consider to be anachronistic (...). Some arrive with their armies and their mercenaries here and there", he declared in a thinly veiled allusion. to Russia and the group of Russian mercenaries Wagner, close to the Kremlin and deployed in particular in the Central African Republic and Mali, although Bamako denies it.

"A new balanced, reciprocal and responsible relationship"

"It is the comfort of the reading grids of the past: measuring our influence by the numbers of our military operations, or satisfying ourselves with exclusive privileged links with leaders, or considering that economic markets are rightfully ours because we were there before ", he added.

"That time has lived".

"We must build a new balanced, reciprocal and responsible relationship" with the countries of the African continent, he hammered during a speech at the Elysee Palace on the eve of an African tour.

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The French president must continue on Wednesday with a tour of four Central African countries: Gabon, Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

During the first stage, in Libreville, he will participate in a summit on the preservation of the forests of the Congo River basin.

The speech also comes after the end of the Barkhane anti-terrorist operation in the Sahel and the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali and Burkina Faso.

These two countries are now controlled by military juntas and a feeling of hostility towards France is alive there.

A "visible decrease" in French military personnel

On the military level, the president reported an upcoming "visible reduction" in French military personnel in Africa and a "new model of partnership" involving a "rise in power" of Africans.

"The transformation will begin in the coming months with a visible reduction in our workforce and a rise in power in (the French military bases) of our African partners", he assured.

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France still deploys some 3,000 soldiers in the region, particularly in Niger and Chad, after having counted up to 5,500 men there, but it intends to re-articulate its system towards countries in the Gulf of Guinea, won by the jihadist thrust, and be less visible on the ground.

In this region, and on the continent as a whole, the influence of France and Westerners is contested by China and Russia.

Thus, three of the four countries that the French president will visit - Gabon, Congo and Angola - abstained last Thursday during the vote on a resolution of the General Assembly of the UN demanding the Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.

Africa is not a "square meadow" 

Africa is not a "backyard", we must move from a "logic" of aid to that of investment, added Emmanuel Macron.

Monday's speech echoed that of Ouagadougou, in 2017, in which Emmanuel Macron had marked his desire to turn the page with the post-colonial African policy of Paris, the "Françafrique", marked by political collusion and sulphurous links, and reached out to an increasingly suspicious African youth vis-à-vis France.

The president, presenting himself as the leader of a new generation, then denounced in front of 800 students the "indisputable crimes" of colonization and called for a "new relationship" with Africa, a pact which he intends to extend to the world. 'Europe.

In July, Emmanuel Macron had already toured Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.

He intends to continue his visits to the continent "almost every six months, or even more".

A law to "proceed to new restitutions" of works of art

On Monday, he also announced "a framework law" to "carry out new restitutions" of works of art "for the benefit of African countries which request it".

This law "will be proposed in the coming weeks by the Minister of Culture to our Parliament" and "will make it possible to set the methodology and the criteria for proceeding" with these restitutions, "based on a cultural and scientific partnership to welcome and preserve these works “, continued the French head of state, indicating that he hoped “that this approach can be part of a broader dynamic and also a European dynamic”.