France’s main envoy in Senegal said relations between the two countries would be strengthened under the new government which was installed in Dakar last month.
Almost two months after the new Senegalese administration came into office, the French ambassador in Dakar had her first exchange with Ousmane Sonko on Tuesday 21 May.
Christine Fages said she was “honoured” to hold a one-on-one meeting with Ousmane Sonko, the former Senegalese opposition leader, who became prime minister after the Pastef party came to power in March.
According to the French diplomat, this first meeting was “constructive and promising for strengthening and renewing the partnership between Senegal and France.”
Unlike their predecessors, Senegal’s new leaders, who claim to belong to the sovereignist and pan-Africanist school of thought, have not yet visited Paris.
However, Sonko, as president of Pastef, received the leader of France Insoumise, a French left-wing party, in Dakar last week.
The two men, who share similar views on many issues except homosexuality, held a joint press briefing at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar which was well attended.
Since his election, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s first foreign trips have been to Senegal’s immediate neighbours Mauritania, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Last week, he travelled to Abuja and Accra to meet his Nigerian and Ghanaian counterparts with the aim of strengthening economic cooperation and African integration.
On receiving the President of the European Council in mid-April, Macky Sall’s successor explained to the former Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, the new dynamic based on sovereignty and win-win partnership that he wanted to establish in relations between Dakar and Europe.
“It is true that cooperation with the European Union is dense and multifaceted. But together we want to build a partnership that is rethought, renewed and enriched by a shared vision of a fairer international order that reflects the realities of today’s world,” stressed the 44-year-old Senegalese head of state.
ODL/ac/lb/as/APA
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