French puppet leaders across Africa were convinced when French President Emmanuel Macron landed in Yaoundé, Cameroon on Monday for a two-day visit: Francafrique is back.
The question is what that means for the millions of futures.
Answers, and Macron's legacy, more oppression, more coups, more corruption, more violence, more suffering, and ultimately more refugees and migrants seeking security It's a dangerous trip to Europe.
It also means further invasions of Russia and China, and they will expose European colonial crimes even if they increase their own influence.
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Born after the independence of the former French colony in Africa, Macron described himself as Francafrique (a doctrine that uses troops to regulate the conditions of the government of the former French colony as needed) or as an antithesis of colonization. Present 2.0
Rather than abolish it, Macron reformed the colonial CFA franc – originally franc des colonies françaises d’Afrique – a currency still printed in France and used by 14 African countries. It will be renamed the Eco by 2027, sparking accusations of neo-colonisation, including by Italy’s then-deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio.
To regain credibility, Macron agreed to return some of the African artefacts looted under colonialism in French museums, and to declassify secret files on the assassination in 1987 of Burkina Faso’s anti-colonial leader Thomas Sankara.
He commissioned a report that criticized the former French president François Mitterrand over actions around the Rwandan genocide, agreed to return the skulls of 24 Algerian resistance fighters taken to France in the 19th century as trophies, and – as the diplomatic lead for all things related to French-speaking Africa at the UN security council – Macron also pledged to stand up for democracy and protect human rights.
Yet Macron’s first foreign trip outside Europe since re-election in April will see him meet Paul Biya, an 89-year-old despot who has been in power since Macron was five years old.
Over the weekend the Élysée Palace said Macron was meeting Biya not to find a solution to Cameroon’s anglophone crisis, which has seen separatist militias and government forces committing human rights abuses with impunity for the past five years, but to discuss the food crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, agriculture and security issues.
Notably absent from the Élysée’s reasons for the visit are Biya’s human rights abuses, including the persecution of LGBT people.
No justification for Macron’s visit can erase the fact that Paris is still the bedrock for Françafrique and its puppets – such as Alassane Ouattara, in Ivory Coast; Ali Bongo Ondimba, in Gabon; Faure Gnassingbé, in Togo; Gen Mahamat Déby, in Chad; Denis Sassou Nguesso, in Congo-Brazzaville; as well as Biya – that France shelters under its security and diplomatic umbrella despite their gross abuses of human rights, corruption and electoral fraud that have impoverished their countries.
