France wants to remain a "relevant partner" in Africa despite the "anti-French discourse"

June 7, 2023

France intends to remain a “relevant partner” in Africa despite “anti-French rhetoric”, said Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna when presenting the country’s foreign policy in Africa to the Senate on Tuesday evening.

While the population of the African continent, which already has 1.1 billion inhabitants, should double by 2050 according to the United Nations, African youth challenged France: “that of renewing ourselves, of changing our how to do it”, noted the head of French diplomacy, stressing that Paris had heard the message of young people.

She recalled France’s desire “to build a new, balanced, reciprocal relationship” with African countries.

“This is how France will remain a close, relevant partner in this continent called to occupy such a central position in the balance of the world of tomorrow,” she added.

The minister did not elude “headwinds” and in particular “the dissemination of anti-French discourse in certain French-speaking African countries”.

These speeches “are partly linked to the heritage of history, partly to the frustrations of young people, partly also to hostile companies, particularly from Russia,” she said.

Africa is at the heart of international struggles for influence which have redoubled since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Many African countries are dependent for their food on grain imports from Russia and Ukraine.

Moscow has multiplied initiatives on the continent in recent years, aimed at posing as an alternative to the former colonial powers.

“Nothing is more wrong, and for a long time” than to think that relations between France and its African partners go without saying in a world “always more competitive”, also underlined the minister before the senators.

“With the continent’s ever-increasing participation in the global economy, these are markets for our businesses to consolidate or invest in,” she continued.

France is the second largest foreign investor on the African continent after China. In fifteen years, the number of subsidiaries of French companies has doubled on the continent, as have investments, detailed Catherine Colonna.

For his part, the Minister for the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu noted that over time, African countries had “decided to diversify their partnerships” and to “put them in competition” including in terms of defence.

“This brings the challenge of being more attractive vis-à-vis old partners with whom we are in affective relations”, he explained, also recalling that the African continent is “subject to tensions between authoritarian models and democracies”.

With regard to the terrorist threat, it has evolved in ten years: today, “it is more fragmented, more diffuse, more endogenous, more difficult to detect and inform”, explained Sébastien Lecornu, stressing that it was necessary therefore think about new methods of combating terrorism.

He also pleaded for “a more transparent approach to the missions” of the French bases, and said his desire to welcome many more cadets or non-commissioned officers in France.

The minister will thus continue discussions with his counterparts to propose a “new training catalog” to prevent countries from turning in particular to the Russian offer.

Sébastien Lecornu also regretted the delay in the space field, in cyber or drones “in supporting these armies”.

“We have to work twice as hard,” he continued, stressing the need “both to fight terrorism and to honor our word sometimes given by defense agreements” signed decades ago. .