The President of Chad Mahamat Idriss Déby and the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, received at the Élysée on February 6 and 7 respectively, preceded by the President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, on January 25: at the start of the year 2023, Emmanuel Macron active on the diplomatic front vis-à-vis Africa. And that’s not all: the head of state is due to visit Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola and Congo-Brazzaville in early March.
“The Russian bear has awakened the Gallic rooster”, notes the journalist and writer Antoine Glaser, specialist in Africa and co-author of the book “The African trap of Macron” (Fayard, 2021), in reference to the place taken by Russia, and in particular by the paramilitary group Wagner, on the African continent.
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“During his first mandate, with the exception of the Sahel and the Ivory Coast, Emmanuel Macron wanted to avoid the traditional French pre-square in West Africa and Central Africa, continues Antoine Glaser. The start of his second mandate is marked by a reinvestment in the countries that he had hitherto shunned a little. It is the return of realpolitik to defend French interests stricto sensu.”
The French president’s first African tour following his re-election – to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau in July 2022 – perfectly illustrated this desire. Cameroon occupies a strategic position between the Atlantic Ocean and Chad, where French troops are positioned in the region. However, Yaoundé signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia in April 2022. Seeing it as a threat to the interests of France, Emmanuel Macron has constantly denounced, in the three countries visited, the actions of Russia in Ukraineaccusing it of being “one of the last colonial imperial powers”.
“Countering Russian Propaganda”
The aim pursued is clear: to thwart Russian propaganda which depicts France as a colonial power. In 2017, during his first trip to Africa, Emmanuel Macron had nevertheless bet, in a speech delivered in Ouagadougou, on French “soft power”. The opposite happened. Anti-French sentiment developed in several former coloniesas in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger or Senegal, leading to demonstrations and, ultimately, the departure of French troops from Mali and Burkina Faso.
The French president is now on the offensive. In his speech to the French ambassadors gathered at the Élysée on 1is September 2022, Emmanuel Macron urged diplomats to be “more reactive” in the face of propaganda hostile to France on social networks, distilled by a “Russian, Chinese or Turkish narrative” which claims that “France is a country that makes neo-colonization and which installs its army” on the soil of African countries.
For the French head of state, it is also a question of revitalizing economic ties. Because the acknowledgment of failure is just as striking in this area, even if France’s decline began long before Emmanuel Macron came to power. The market shares of French companies present in Africa have thus fallen from 10.6% in 2002 to 4.4% in 2021, while those of Chinese companies have, at the same time, jumped from 3.8% to 18, 8%, according to figures reported by Challenges magazine.
However, France hopes to strengthen its presence in the future in the sectors of agriculture, automotive, rail transport, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and energy transition.
“France, which had a central position in Africa in the second half of the 20e century, did not realize at the turn of the 21ste century that Africa was changing, explains Antoine Glaser. She did not see Africa go global and let other powers gain influence.”
“The ‘at the same time’ didn’t work”
By returning to a more classic African diplomacy and focusing more on political, economic and security ties, Emmanuel Macron hopes to make up for lost time. In Benin, last July, he thus spoke of a “win-win partnership”, highlighting Paris’ support for Porto Novo in terms of security, in particular for intelligence and equipment.
“Even if Emmanuel Macron will go to Gabon for the One Forest Summit, this trip will be much more geostrategic than what is announced, believes Antoine Glaser. France’s positions are weakened. The ‘at the same time’ did not work. France wants to regain its place, but its room for maneuver is very narrow because now African heads of state have the whole world in their waiting room.
Especially since this future African tour will not fail to arouse criticism. Gabon and DR Congo are in an election year. Opposition to Presidents Ali Bongo and Félix Tshisekedi might accuse Emmanuel Macron of wanting to bring support to the outgoing President in each of these two countries through his visit. And so to want to revive Françafrique.