On the eve of his new tour of Africa, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech on France’s new African policy for the coming years. Abba Seidik, a Nigerien journalist, editorialist and writer
specializing in Franco-African relations explains.
On Monday, February 27, in a speech delivered at the Elysee Palace, as he is due to begin a new tour of Africa starting Wednesday, March 1, 2023, which will take him to Gabon, Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted a “new partnership between France and Africa. Why such an announcement?
In his speech, President Emmanuel Macron advocated a new partnership with Africa because France has realized that Africa has changed. It took him time to do so, but in President Macron’s speech, we see that there is awareness that Africa is no longer a domain, a preserve for France, as he said. From there, France’s relationship with Africa must evolve and Paris must abandon a certain number of behaviors.
President Macron himself said that they can no longer behave in Africa as they did in the past and that they must have the same attitude towards Africa as they have towards Poland or Germany.
This is an evolution. For a very long time, France did not free itself from the mentality of a former colonial power, which led it to consider that it had positions of rent in Africa and that a phone call to Niamey was enough for Niger to give a mining permit to Areva or Orano. Or that all it takes is a phone call to Abidjan for President Ouattara to grant additional flights to Air France.
Emmanuel Macron now recognizes that today Africa is a land of competition and that if France wants to be competitive, it must sweat it out. It must be able to seek its market share by itself because there is no longer an established position. The changing context has forced France to change its paradigm.
It is not simply an evaluation that has been made, but the context that has imposed it on France. It is either France enters a new, less unbalanced partnership with Africa or it is completely left behind. In fact, there are new, very competitive players who are there and who can oust France, unless it becomes more aware and makes change. Today, President Macron is opening up this work of change, and if he doesn’t do it, France will be completely out.
I believe that the context and the evolution have imposed this change, especially with the bad position in which France finds itself, particularly in the Sahel, where it is completely rejected by public opinion. We are talking about Burkina and Mali, but I am sure that even in the other countries where France has not been totally ousted, as we saw in Dakar when the events of 2021 took place, people have attacked French interests. We saw the same thing in Chad during the October 2022 demonstrations.
The same thing happened in Niger, which is presented as one of the most loyal countries in the Sahel in recent times. There were anti-French protests, even though they were later banned. I believe that France has integrated all of this into its assessment of its relationship with Africa and has promised to move towards a more balanced partnership.
Now, it is not enough to simply make speeches, we must move on to practical things. And we will see if France has integrated this evolution of Africa in its new relationship with the African continent.
What are the main lines of the new relationship desired by Paris with African countries?
Beyond what we might have expected and which looks a bit like a rehash, there are aspects that are interesting from an analytical point of view. President Macron said: “We are not able to compete with others on all fronts. So we are going to choose niches, themes or places where we have added value.” And that seems important to me. If France wants to save its interests in Africa, it will have to choose where it can compete.
To compete with China, which can put $55 billion into its relations with Africa, objectively, France does not have the means. Now, there are areas where it has a comparative advantage over China. This is the case of culture, higher education, the importance of bi-nationals of African origin… I believe that President Macron has shaped this project.
The first thing he emphasized was the linguistic community, with the fact that it has in common with many African countries, a very special relationship. Africa is the first land of the French language, the first map of the Francophonie…
There are all elements that make the choice of the cultural and linguistic aspect and the choice of
scientific exchanges, especially university exchanges, projects that France must build with Africa and in which it can have an added value and contribute to strengthening its relations.
But here too, the issue of visas must be resolved. On the sports front too, President Macron said that many young Africans do not understand why French clubs play friendly matches with all parts of the world except Africa. It’s because there too, there is the colonial mentality that still remains.
It is considered that African countries cannot have good teams or even if they have, they are not up to France. During the last World Cup, we saw Morocco reach the semi-finals and Senegal the round of 16.
Regarding the new economic partnership, President Macron has recognized that the current paradigm must be changed. In many countries, French companies are in a good position. But they are not in a good position because of their performance or the quality of their work.
They are in a good position because of political support from Paris or from French embassies in African countries. What I am saying is fully documented. You will recall that President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, may he rest in peace, was forced by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean Yves Le Drian, and the French ambassador in Bamako, to give a contract for biometric passports to a French company, even though it was not the best or lowest bidder.
But France imposed it. You will find examples of this in many African countries. So, France must also change in its economic relations with Africa, so that its companies can compete with African companies, or that they can make joint ventures. Why not set up Franco-Nigerien, Franco-Mauritanian, Franco-Senegalese companies… so that we can have mutual and shared interests. The reason is that today’s economic relations are not very balanced; they are unfavorable to African countries.
On all of these issues, I believe that he has opened the way for new projects and these seem to be the major projects. But as I say, we must now judge France by its actions because there have been many broken promises. When François Hollande came to power, we were told that the rupture is now. This was the slogan of his campaign concerning ‘Françafrique.’ When Sarkozy came before him, he said the same thing. In Cotonou, he said that the night emissaries are finished.
They will find closed doors at the Elysee Palace… But nothing has changed. Macron himself in Ouagadougou had raised enormous hopes with his speech, but his practice of power has shown that he has not changed anything and that he even has good relations with certain African potentates who are vomited by their people.
So, we will judge by the work and the practice. As President Macron himself is going to Africa tomorrow, Wednesday, March 1, we will see if this will be an opportunity to transform relations, to move from speech to practice, especially in Gabon or Congo where we will see if he will receive the opposition since he promised in the speech to support democracy, to speak to all sensitivities … We will see if all this was said with conviction or if he made this speech as an umpteenth speech intended to gain time regarding relations between France and Africa, while France is leaving through bad times on the continent.
Is the central measure in the French president’s speech, the announced transformation, not closure, of French military bases in Africa sufficient to contribute to changing the degraded image of France in a large part of African opinion?
As part of the strategy of the new military partnership with Africa, Macron made a diagnosis that was undoubtedly good, but the measure that was announced falls short of reality. Today, what is creating the
misunderstanding in the Sahel in particular? The public rightly says that we see drones and mirages in Niamey, that France has satellites, but unfortunately, all this does not serve us, does not improve our security. We see thousands of soldiers. When the various French bases in the Sahel were closed, some 4,000 containers were transported.
What is in these containers? And how, with all the means that France has, can it not prevent the territorial extension of terrorism in the Sahel? This is what created the misunderstanding. Today, if France says that it will be present but less visible, it means that it has not understood the resentment of the African populations. As long as
France is present and does not participate in an operational way in the fight against terrorism, as long as its presence is not synonymous with results in the fight against this scourge, it is not what Macron
has announced that will change the perception that people have.
The President said that from now on we will have fewer troops and will welcome soldiers from the countries concerned in the countries where we are present. I laughed a little because this is out of all proportion to reality. This is a kind of tinkering when the reality is much deeper.
The reality is that people are asking whether the French military presence can add some value to the continent. In Burkina Faso, for example, the 400 members of the French Special Forces who were stationed there did not prevent 40 percent of the territory of Burkina Faso from slipping through the central state’s hands.
The French retort that this is not their role. But what is their role? If a foreign army is present in a country, it must add value. If that is not the case, its presence is not necessary. Now, what President Macron has said does not seem to me to go in the direction of helping countries to obtain results.
This adjustment that is going to be made is not going to allow countries to achieve better results in the fight against terrorism. And if that doesn’t happen, there will always be resentment and rejection of the French military presence.
Some sources in Paris say that it was the military lobby that lobbied, saying that if we abandon Africa, strategically, it is not good for the French army, but if the French army is to continue to be present, it must get results; otherwise the measures announced by Macron will not be enough to change the perception of African public opinions.
LOS/ARD/fss/abj/APA