French President Emmanuel Macron will present his strategy for Africa for the next four years on Monday, February 27, in order to “deepen the partnership between France, Europe and the continent”, the Elysée announced on Friday.
In a speech at the Elysée, two days before the start of a tour in Central Africa, he will specify his “vision of partnership with African countries” and “the course he is setting” for his second five-year term, said an adviser to the president.
Emmanuel Macron will visit four Central African countries next week: Gabon, Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “He will set out the objectives of this trip and, more broadly, his priorities and his method for deepening the partnership between France, Europe and the African continent,” said the Elysée in a press release. This speech, scheduled for 5 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT), will be followed by a press conference with French and African journalists from a distance.
Anti-French sentiment
It will follow the speech delivered in Ougadougou on November 28, 2017, in which Emmanuel Macron had indicated his desire to turn the page with France’s postcolonial African policy, marked by political collusion and sulphurous links, and reached out to a African youth increasingly suspicious of France.
But anti-French sentiment has since gained ground in the former African ‘backyard’ of Paris, the French army had to leave Mali and Burkina Faso where it was engaged in counter-terrorism operations and French influence on the continent. increasingly contested by Russia and China.
Both the speech and the African tour will also be an opportunity to present the new contours of the French military presence on the continent after the end of Operation “Barkhane” and the withdrawal of the army from Mali and Burkina at the request of the juntas in power in these two countries.
The Head of State will be able to “further explain the evolution of our military presence in Africa, an evolution which primarily concerns West Africa but also Central Africa”, specified the adviser. “The philosophy of this change is not to put more or less (men), things will also evolve between different countries, it is to cooperate differently,” added the adviser. “We are coming out of a cycle where France needed or tended to put itself in the front line. We are entering a cycle where we are going to work in the second curtain, ”he specified.
