“Confidence in Abiy Ahmed is damaged”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, should be satisfied with the minimum service to the Ethiopian authorities on Friday November 29. He will discuss “from an old and rich partnership (…) in the field of education and heritage”, according to the spokesperson for the Quai d'Orsay, Christophe Lemoine. During this express visit to Addis Ababa, priority will be given to the African Union, whose headquarters is located in the Ethiopian capital, to discuss the war in Sudan.

A meeting is planned with the head of Ethiopian diplomacy, Gedion Timotheos. But the French minister should not cross paths with the head of state, Abiy Ahmed, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. That year, Emmanuel Macron went to Addis Ababa with the desire to to write “a new page” : kick off an economic and military partnership “unpublished” with the continent's rising star.

Ethiopia and its 120 million inhabitants were then in the midst of a political transition. It looked like a future commercial El Dorado, at the head of which had just arrived a young liberal prime minister of 42 years old, wanting to bring this old interventionist country into globalization. Emmanuel Macron then finds himself in the image of this reforming head of state, of whom he is from the same generation.

“We have no past and therefore no liabilities in this region, and it is natural that France is seen as a partner there perhaps better than anywhere else in Africa”enthused the French president, before signing several agreements – including military cooperation – with a country which was, according to him, able to “structuring the entire Horn of Africa ».

An end to hopes of renewal

Five years later, Franco-Ethiopian cooperation was reduced as Ethiopia disintegrated with the Tigray war (2020-2022) – some 600,000 deaths according to the African Union. This extremely violent conflict continues to damage the figure of Abiy Ahmed abroad, going from the status of peacemaker to that of war leader.

The gradual decomposition of the country that followed, a consequence of ethnic conflicts and uninhibited authoritarianism, put an end to hopes of renewal. The country's two main regions, Oromia and Amhara – around 60 million inhabitants between them – are the scene of guerrillas. “Confidence in Abiy Ahmed is damaged”summarizes a French diplomatic source.

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