SPECULUM VERUM
On the move to 5 march on the african continent, Emmanuel Macron is trying to lay down the new lines of a "renovated" partnership in order to diversify relations that have hitherto been essentially focused on sub-Saharan Africa.. It is true that, heavily criticized in recent months, especially by young people, France's African policy has never been so difficult to read and understand.
In 2017, in Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, the one who had just been recently elected head of state had already announced his desire to "turn the page on Françafrique". It repeated itself in Libreville, the 2 mars. In other words, to put an end to the privileged relations that France maintained, for better and sometimes for worse, with its former colonies since independence. six years later, Emmanuel Macron himself recognizes that this change of policy vis-à-vis our former partners has not "yet fully produced its results".
Blindness or bias, the consequences of this reorientation of our relations with certain African countries have nevertheless been in the headlines, in recent months. Thereby, the eviction of France from Mali, which was on our list of priority countries for official development assistance (145 million euros of ODA in 2019), or even, more recently, our removal from Burkina Faso, who received this same year, still as ODA [official development assistance, Editor's note], 137 millions of euros, prove the deleterious effects of this major political reversal.
Despite development aid which peaked in 2020, with a budget of 12,4 Billions of Euro's, dont 72 % in the form of donations, the African policy launched by Emmanuel Macron therefore turns out to be a bitter failure. Unable to initiate a coherent and strong policy with African States, bogged down in many costly inner difficulties, now unable to conduct any international policy outside of its “mentors” in the European Union and the USA, the Head of State chooses to withdraw through the back door.
For this purpose, what better strategy than to pose as an innovator and to propose the passage “from a logic of aid to that of investment”. Or even to promote a "new balanced relationship, reciprocal and responsible”. empty words, perfectly conjunctural and, Above all, which sign the impotence of a man in the face of a situation (another one) which escapes him definitively.
On the economic plan, France's export market shares in Africa have been halved since 2000, passing 11 % at 5,5 % in 2017. Note that this decline, outside of aeronautics, applies to all sectors.
On the military level, the President of the Republic also announces a reduction in staff and an upcoming effort in training and equipment. Here again, sign of weakness, it is a whole section of French geopolitics and geostrategy that is called into question. Unable to resist the pressure of certain powers having better anticipated current planetary events, it is an unconditional abdication that we are witnessing.
This presidential African trip, about which six out of ten French people think that it will in no way improve our country's relations with our African partners, just like the sixteen other trips made on African soil since the beginning of his first mandate, will therefore probably remain without noticeable effects. France will end up losing all influence on a continent to which it was historically linked, which will not prevent the French from seeing, without any consideration, grow and multiply African immigration that we now know is out of control.