The new Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko attacked on Thursday the attitude of Paris during the repression of protests under former President Macky Sall, accusing the Macron presidency of having indirectly incited “persecution”.
“During the entire period of extremely violent persecution against an entire political movement, having resulted in and caused the death of more than sixty people, thousands of injured, more than 1000 political detainees, you have never heard the French government denounce what happened in Senegal,” declared Ousmane Sonko during a speech lasting more than an hour on relations with Europe in front of students in Dakar. He accused the European Union of the same silence.
Ousmane Sonko accused Emmanuel Macron of having welcomed and “congratulated” his Senegalese counterpart “at the worst (time)” of the repression. “It is an incitement to repression, an incitement to the persecution and execution of Senegalese who had (committed no other) crime than having a political project,” he declared.
“The truth is that many European governments, particularly French ones, have difficulty coping with our sovereignist political discourse and have set themselves the objective of hindering it. This explains the approving silence in the face of the bloody repression of President Macky Sall’s regime against our party,” he said.
Ousmane Sonko, who participated in a conference with French radical left opponent Jean-Luc Mélenchon, stressed that he was speaking as leader of the Pastef party and not as head of government.
