“It is not Emmanuel Macron’s speech that will change our destiny. Thus, reacted a leader of the Balai Citoyen (Burkinabe civil society), following the new orientations of African policy, announced by the Elysee, as a prelude to the tour which ends this Saturday, March 4. Do the contrasting reactions to this speech mean that the exercise is not successful?
One might as well wonder if it was even indispensable. Admittedly, the image of France has been somewhat mistreated in public opinion lately in Africa. But, last September, Emmanuel Macron was already reading the disenchantment displayed by African opinions about his country, suggesting that these attacks could result from manipulations orchestrated by a “narrative, Russian, Chinese or Turkish”, on the networks. This speech, barely six months later, gives the impression that France, in Africa, is on the defensive, if not cornered, out of diagnosis.
In the demonstrations hostile to France, one regularly sees some Russian flags, indeed, and one hears certain spirits suggesting that Russia and the mercenaries of Wagner could constitute an answer to what the populations no longer accepted from France. However, it suffices to listen to the most enlightened section of public opinion to understand that the rejection of which France may be the object has nothing to do with a Russia which, in the days of the Soviet Union, largely demonstrates its inability to pull any African country out of the abyss. Ethiopians, Guineans, Beninese, and other Malians could testify to this.