PARIS, France
President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday begins a three-nation tour of western African states in the first trip to Africa of his new term as he seeks to reboot France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.
Macron will begin his July
25-28 tour, also the first venture outside Europe of his new mandate, with a
visit to Cameroon, before moving on to Benin and then finishing the trip in
Guinea-Bissau.
Top of the agenda in the talks
will be food supply issues, with African nations fearing shortages especially
of grain due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But security will also loom
large as France prepares to complete its pullout from Mali this year, with all
countries in the region seeking to head off fears of Islamist insurgencies.
The trip to three countries
which rarely feature on the itinerary of global leaders comes with Macron, who
won a new term in April, pledging to keep up his bid for a new relationship
between France and Africa.
France has also followed with concern
the emergence of other powers seeking a foothold in an area Paris still
considers parts of its sphere of influence, notably Turkey under President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also increasingly China and Russia.
The tour “will show the
commitment of the president in the process of renewing the relationship with
the African continent”, said a French presidential official, who asked not to
be named.
It will signal that the
African continent is a “political priority” of his presidency.
In Cameroon, which has been
riven by ethnic violence and an insurgency by anglophone separatists, Macron
will meet President Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled the country for almost 40
years and is the longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.
Biya has run the country with
an iron fist, refusing demands for federalism and cracking down on the
rebellion by separatists.
Macron will move on Wednesday
to Benin, a neighbour of Africa’s most populous nation Nigeria. The north of
the country has faced more deadly attacks, with the jihadist threat now
spreading from the Sahel to Gulf of Guinea nations.
He is likely to be lauded for
championing the return in November of 26 historic treasures which were stolen
in 1892 by French colonial forces from Abomey, capital of the former Dahomey
kingdom located in the south of modern-day Benin.
Benin was long praised for its
thriving multi-party democracy. But critics say its democracy has steadily
eroded under President Patrice Talon over the last half decade. Opposition
leader Reckya Madougou was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison on terrorism
charges.
On Thursday, Macron will
finish his tour in Guinea-Bissau, which has been riven by political crisis at a
time when its President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is preparing to take the helm of
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
With all the countries
criticised by activists over their rights records, the Elysee has insisted that
governance and rights issues will be raised, albeit “without media noise but in
the form of direct exchanges between the heads of states”.
Macron’s first term was marked
by visits to non-francophone African countries including regional powerhouses
Nigeria and South Africa as he sought to engage with the entire continent and
not just former French possessions.
Benin is a former French
colony, but Guinea-Bissau was once a Portuguese colony while Cameroon’s
colonial heritage is a mixture of British and German as well as French.
Macron meanwhile has insisted
France’s military presence in the region will adapt rather than disappear once
the pullout from Mali is complete.
He announced last week that a
rethink of France’s presence would be complete by autumn, saying the military
should be “less exposed” in the future but their deployment still a “strategic
necessity”.
The pullout from Mali follows
a breakdown in relations with the country’s ruling junta, which Western states
accuse of relying on Russian Wagner mercenaries rather than European allies to
fight an Islamist insurgency. - AFP
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