From the illusion of innovation to pragmatism resulting from a certain surrender. President of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced this Monday afternoon Strategy for AfricaWhere France Both experienced significant declines. military and geopolitical space. Speech from the palace elysiumtwo days before the start four countries diplomatic tour Central Africa: Gabon, Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali and Burkina Faso dealt a heavy blow to the centrist leader, who considers his country and the European Union’s ties to the African continent essential. Despite the growing presence of rival powers such as Russia or China, Macron argued that French troops should gradually withdraw from Africa and strengthen their ties through the economy and civil society.soft power‘).
The president claimed a recipe very similar to the one that surfaced in Ouagadougou in November 2017. Then, a newly elected 39-year-old centrist leader promised to turn the page on neocolonial policies.france africa‘. He claims to have advocated the same path five years later. It’s a reasonable bet on a theoretical level, though it’s been weakened by France’s loss of influence and a few diplomatic successes since 2017. The African board reflects the competitive and chaotic nature of current world relations. French influence is suppressed not only by the growing presence of rival powers such as Russia or China, but also by allied theorists such as Turkey or Israel, who each act on their own and with their own agendas.
“I don’t believe” in military competition
“Many people want to take us to a competition (between forces). I do not believe in that. Referring to Russia’s growing influence in his speech, Macron said this road represents a stalemate. Moscow has replaced the French military presence in Mali through the Wagner group of mercenaries and may do the same in the United States. Burkina FasoAs well as having a significant presence in the Central African Republic.
As is known, it is obvious that Africa is a “country of competition”. macronThe centrist leader does not want to counter this growing Russian influence by locking himself into a policy of military deployment. In his speech at the Élysée, he announced a new “military partnership model”. This will consist of protecting existing French military bases, but with “less availability” of French soldiers and more responsibility of our “African partners”. France currently has about 5,500 soldiers stationed on African soil, 3,000 of them in Sahel countries such as Niger and Chad.
“Today many of our companies continue to fail as they try to sell their best quality products to the African continent,” Macron complained. He called for a transition from “the logic of economic aid to investments and investments” in a continent that he described as “one of the most dynamic markets in the world in the future”. besides the economic It is claimed that it strengthens the ties of education, sports and culture. —Announced a new law that establishes a framework for the return of African artworks or the fight against climate change and the defense of the environment. The president said he would try to think about all this over this week’s tour of Africa, which will begin with a summit against deforestation in Libreville.
bet criticized by realpolitik
Macron will begin this tour on Wednesday through four countries in Central Africa. None of them are part of the unstable Sahel region, where France was forced to withdraw its troops (in Mali and Burkina Faso), and there is a a strong anti-French feelingspread to the rest of the continent. Gabon, Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo represent “stable countries”, they stand out from the Elysee. The flip side of this stability is caudillesque governments in at least two of them (Gabon and Congo).
Moreover, Gabon, Congo and Angola They abstained from last week’s UN General Assembly vote calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. “We must tackle the story that says there is a divide between Ukraine and the rest of the world (non-Western countries),” said the president, who last summer accused many African leaders of being indifferent to the Ukraine cause. He opposes sanctions against Russia. This time he wanted to be “more modest” and justified his “pragmatism”.
In fact, Macron has been criticized in recent weeks for the many meetings he has had with some of the most controversial African leaders. For example, at the beginning of February, Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed received on the Elysee, whose army was accused of “war crimes” in the bloody war in the Tigre region. The previous day, he met with Mahamat Idriss Déby of Chad, who succeeded his father, who had been in power for 30 years, and took the reins of his country by carrying out a coup.
And this week’s tour was denounced for meeting in the midst of Gabon’s election campaign with President Ali Bongo, whose family has ruled the oil-rich country with an iron fist for more than 50 years. A realpolitk this seems to be the result of the French decline in Africa. And yet the need to resist it. Macron advocates maintaining influence, but based on a ‘soft power’ strategy, less military influence and more cultural and economic bridges.