2023-08-09 19:22:55
For a French President, Emmanuel Macron, who has given himself, since his arrival at the Elysée, the great ambition of rewriting the tumultuous relationship between France and Africa, the coups d’etat which have followed one another in the Sahel are a powerful indicator of failure. They have in common a rejection assumed by the putschists of French influence in the region.
It is true that hatred once morest France has been used as fuel for political and military mobilization by competing forces such as Russia, China or Turkey, but that should not hide the reasons for Emmanuel Macron’s failure to give new ambitions and new perspectives to the relationship between Paris and these African capitals.
Today, the crisis in Niger has just spectacularly embodied this possible twilight of the French presence in this region of the Sahel, which is so important economically and in terms of security for France and for Europe. The reaction from Paris, going so far as to suggest and possibly support a possible military intervention once morest the putschists, reflects the depth of the anxieties and the importance of this strategic turning point.
Internally, Emmanuel Macron is challenged by the opposition who will not miss this opportunity to blame these setbacks on his mismanagement of this France-Africa relationship. Recently, a much noticed column signed by eminent opposition figures published in the newspaper Le Figaro sounded the tocsin once morest Macron’s choices in Africa and their consequences. With this terrible observation: “Today, the Françafrique of yesterday has been replaced by military Russafrique, by economic Chinafrica or diplomatic Americarafrique. And what regarding, unfortunately, the regression of the Francophonie in relation to the English language? »
Even if this posture does not have much chance of modifying Emmanuel Macron’s perception of France’s relations with these African countries, it nevertheless constitutes an element of pressure which will be added to the regional difficulties encountered by the French diplomacy to achieve its objectives and maintain its influence in this region.
In his determined will to stop the military coup in Niger, Emmanuel Macron encounters reluctance which are so many brakes for the solution he recommends in fine to cauterize the Nigerien case. Both the American administration and certain European countries do not share his enthusiasm to put into practice the military threat in case the political negotiations between the ECOWAS countries and the putschists in Niger fail. They fear a regional conflagration and chaos that would benefit terrorist organizations lurking in the Sahel desert waiting for the collapse of states.
For Emmanuel Macron as for his allies, the great challenge that is needed at the moment is that of knowing how to force the putschists to a return to institutional order without being obliged to intervene militarily.
From its recent experience with Mali and Burkina Faso, Paris is well placed to know that it is very difficult to force putschist soldiers to return to their barracks through diplomatic channels alone. Short of resigning themselves to the loss of Niger to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the French, Europeans and Americans have no choice but military therapy.
Faced with this crisis in Niger, Macron is forced to review his alliances. The strategic preference he seems to have granted to the Algerian regime has proved fruitless. The soldiers of Algiers preferred to side with the Russians who, through their armed wing, the Wagner group are not only trying to put the Sahel region under their control but also to ensure that French influence is freed from it.
No doubt for the sake of dramatization, Niger is presented as the last bastion of French influence in the region. Its loss will thus have enormous consequences on the nature of the relations that Paris will be able to maintain with countries from its former colonies.
Will Macron resign himself to this evolution of history which is ejecting France from this region or will he have the inspiration necessary to maintain French influence? This is the great diplomatic challenge faced by Emmanuel Macron in a region where winds are blowing in other directions.
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