While France is successively losing its military bases and its influence in Africa, Emmanuel Macron adopted an unwelcome paternalistic tone during his speech this Monday, January 6, 2025 at the Annual Conference of Ambassadors. He criticized African leaders for their lack of gratitude, while obscuring the failures of his policies on the continent.
Emmanuel Macron, in a speech marked by colonial paternalism, complained on Monday about the lack of gratitude from African leaders towards French military intervention. “ They forgot to say thank you“, said the French president, suggesting that these countries would not be sovereign without France’s help.
However, the reality is very different from this presidential narrative. Since Emmanuel Macron came to power, France has suffered a historic rout in Africa, successively losing its military bases in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and now in Chad and Ivory Coast. This unprecedented hemorrhage of French influence is accompanied by massive popular rejection, illustrated by the anti-French demonstrations which are multiplying across the continent. The burned French flags and the military bases urgently evacuated tell a completely different story than that of a “voluntary departure”.
The denial of a France which refuses to see its fall
Presidential bad faith reaches its climax when he asserts that France has left “ because of coups“. This declaration deliberately obscures the failures of French policy in the region, the ineffectiveness of the fight against terrorism, and above all, the popular desire to see French troops leave. By qualifying “ bona fide pan-Africanism » legitimate demands for independence, Macron reveals his contempt for African aspirations for true sovereignty.
This condescending posture is accompanied by an astonishing historical amnesia. While several African countries have chosen to break their military ties with France, preferring to diversify their partnerships, Macron persists in seeing these decisions as “ errors of judgment » rather than legitimate sovereign choices.
The French president, while claiming to want to “reorganize” the French presence in Africa, maintains rhetoric that infantilizes African leaders. His reference to “nostalgic people” and people who “don’t understand” perfectly illustrates this paternalistic attitude which continues to mark French policy in Africa.
The irony of his statement ” it will come with time » resonates like an echo of the colonial discourses of yesteryear, where the West positioned itself as the benevolent guardian of nations considered immature. This posture reveals the persistence of an outdated vision of Franco-African relations, despite official speeches on ” new partnership« .
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