Africa-France Summit: Emmanuel Macron challenged by the youth

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On the last day of the Africa-France summit, Friday in Montpellier, Emmanuel Macron received several young Africans so that they could express themselves on subjects as varied as democracy in their respective countries, but also the relations between their country and France. . The French president was also questioned on the fate of migrants in the Mediterranean, on the return of works of art looted in Benin, or on the reduction in the number of visas for Maghreb nationals.

Coming from all over the continent, young Africans expressed unvarnished, Friday, October 8, their expectations and frustrations on democracy and the relationship with France, directly appealing to President Emmanuel Macron during an unprecedented Africa-France summit in Montpellier, which favored the voice of civil society.

Arrived at the end of the morning, Emmanuel Macron, host and only president of this summit without heads of state, went from round table to round table, before a plenary scheduled for the afternoon. On the stand devoted to the restitution of looted works, the Head of State announced that France would give back to Benin at the end of October 26 works of art from the “Trésor de Béhanzin”, looted at the Abomey Palace in 1892 during the colonial wars.

It implements a commitment made in November 2018, as part of this “new relationship” that France intends to forge with the continent and whose returns constitute one of the salient points.


The president was questioned on several occasions by participants. “I can no longer see African youth die in the sea [Méditerranée pour gagner l’Europe]”, launched a woman.

A young Guinean then urged him to “support the Guinean transition” after the putsch that overthrew President Alpha Condé in September, of which Emmanuel Macron agreed that “the third term was not opportune”.

Expectations and frustrations

For the first time since the beginning of Africa-France summits in 1973, this meeting excluded the heads of state of the continent.

Coming from Burkina Faso, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Morocco … the young guests from civil society had a lot to say to France, concerning the colonial heritage, the visa policy or the Development Assistance. From the opening of the summit, to which some 3,000 people were invited, the round table “Citizen engagement and democracy” attracted many spectators and speakers.

“We hope that Montpellier will be a new start. Let us listen to the African ground, African youth, they have things to say to the world and to France,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute.

Referring to the recent decision of Paris to drastically reduce the number of visas for Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians, Mehdi Alioua, professor of political science in Rabat, deplored a “collective punishment” and denounced the visa policy as a “system humiliation [et] of annoyance “, to the applause of the audience.

The issue of mobility remains a very important concern of African youth, who have not seen Emmanuel Macron’s promises come true four years after his speech in Ouagadougou.

Another highly discussed subject, the state of democracy on the African continent, and “French interference”.


Condescension

“We are stuck between a condescending Western speech that wants to educate Africans and a speech from our governments affirming that Westerners want to impose their values,” lamented a young student from Aix-Marseille University, Habiba Issa Moussa, originally Nigerian.

“The essential questions here are not entrepreneurship or sport [largement évoquées au sommet de Montpellier, NDLR], it’s politics! “launched for her part the Burkinabè Sibila Samiratou Ouedraogo, criticizing” the relationship of dependence “of Africa to France.

In the afternoon, President Macron was to debate with a panel of twelve young Africans, selected at the end of the dialogues conducted for months across the continent by the Cameroonian intellectual Achille Mbembe, responsible for preparing the summit.

“I would really like to believe it,” David Maenda Kithoko, a political refugee from the DRC in France, told AFP. “But I have a lot of doubts. Regarding the relationship between France and Africa, there are a lot of big words on the one hand, and a lack of courage on the other,” lamented the young activist.

At the end of the summit, the French president, likely candidate for re-election in seven months, could make other announcements, based on the proposals of Achille Mbembe. Among them, the creation of a fund intended to support initiatives to promote democracy, programs allowing greater student mobility, or the establishment of a “Euro-African forum on migration”.

All in a particularly delicate context. The influence of France in its former precinct is increasingly disputed, particularly by Russia. And Paris is in open crisis with two of its former colonies, Mali and Algeria.

With AFP