For the first time, the Senegalese head of state will not participate in the Francophonie Summit which is currently taking place in France. A presidential absence which will constitute a diplomatic marker of the new regime which defines itself as sovereignist. Par Bokar Sakho –
President Bassirou Diomaye Faye will be in Mbour this morning to attend the “Set-setal” day to return to his childhood kingdom. He will be at the Lycée Demba Diop where he obtained his Baccalaureate in 2000. If the last day had found him in Beijing to attend the China-Africa Summit, this one could also have found him, yesterday and today, in Villers -Cotterêts, at the 19th Summit of the International Organization of the Francophonie (Oif). In yesterday’s edition, the newspaper Enquête announced his absence from this major meeting of French-speaking countries where around thirty heads of state and government gathered, such as Emmanuel Macron and the Secretary General of the OIF, Ms. Louise Mushikiwabo. If there was no official press release to explain this decision, this absence cannot be ignored.
This is a first in the history of the organization which is of particular importance for Senegal. If the organization is considered by its detractors as a tool of propaganda or domination of France or an organization in decay, Senegal has always had a particular attachment to it. First there is the weight of history, which gives it a form of atavism. Léopold Sédar Senghor, like Diori, Bourguiba and Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, was one of the founding fathers of the Oif, created on March 20, 1970 in Niamey to ensure the promotion of “political, educational, economic and cultural cooperation between its member countries, at the service of the populations”. Without forgetting the passage of the former President of Senegal Abdou Diouf at the head of the institution, from 2003 to 2015. It was at home, in Dakar, in 2014, that he chaired his last summit as Secretary general of the Oif, who is at the origin of the creation of Cicad where, on October 14, President Faye is expected at the ceremony of presentation and popularization of the National Development Policy Document, in the presence of the government and all of Senegal’s partners.
Today, this biannual meeting is a patchwork of countries such as Georgia, Romania and Switzerland, with the visit of the King of Cambodia and the President of Laos, as well as other leaders of the planet. For Dakar, it is Ms. Yassine Fall, Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs, who heads the Senegalese delegation to Villers-Cotterêts, because it is a moment of debate of diplomatic orientation in an international context marked by the war in certain Middle Eastern countries where the situation remains very volatile. “The Francophonie, everywhere, is in some way an intermediary. It is this language which allows us to build the network, the network of friendships, human understanding, a diplomacy of action, of analysis. The Francophonie, in the eyes of Emmanuel Macron, constitutes a space of influence whose members must together carry a diplomacy which everywhere defends sovereignty and territorial integrity without double standards.
We all believe in the freedom of peoples to self-determine, are convinced that there can be no peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution. We all stand alongside the friendly Lebanese people, today disrupted in their sovereignty and peace,” explains the President.
French.
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