French President, Macron Under Fire Over Comment on Africa
French President Emmanuel Macron faced sharp criticism on Tuesday from West Africa’s remaining allies and accusations at home of harboring a neo-colonialist mindset after remarking that African countries had “forgotten to say thank you” for France’s decade-long military effort to combat Islamist insurgents.
France’s position in its former colonial stronghold, the Sahel region of francophone West Africa, has weakened following military coups in Mali (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023). These coups overthrew elected governments and led to the expulsion of French troops.
While Russia has expanded its influence in these countries, France had maintained relatively stable ties with Senegal and Chad. However, both nations have recently announced plans for French troops to withdraw.
France launched its military intervention in the Sahel in 2013 under then-President François Hollande. The operation, initially named Serval and later renamed Barkhane, aimed to counter the Islamist insurgency. Over the years, the mission claimed the lives of 58 French soldiers.
I think that they forgot to say ‘thank you’. It does not matter, it will come with time,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors on Monday.
“We did the right thing,” he said of the military deployment, adding that “none” of the states of the Sahel region would be “sovereign” today without that intervention.
“We left because there were coups d’etat, because we were there at the request of sovereign states that had asked France to come,” Macron added. “France no longer had a place there because we are not the assistants of putschists.”
Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno accused Macron of being “in the wrong era”, saying he wanted “to express my outrage” on remarks “which border on contempt for Africa and Africans”.
Chad’s acting foreign minister Abderaman Koulamallah earlier said that the remarks showed a “contemptuous attitude towards Africa and Africans,” adding that French leaders “had to learn to respect Africans”.
Koulamallah noted the “key role” played by Africa and Chad in the liberation of France during World War I and II, which “France has never truly recognised”.
At the end of November, Chad, which hosted Paris’s last military bases in the Sahel, ended the defence and security agreements that linked it with the former colonial power, saying they were “obsolete”.
Around a thousand French military personnel were stationed in the country and are in the process of being withdrawn.
Senegal Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko meanwhile lashed out at Macron for suggesting African countries needed to show gratitude towards France.
“France has neither the capacity nor the legitimacy to ensure Africa’s security and sovereignty. On the contrary, it has often contributed to destabilising certain African countries such as Libya with disastrous consequences for the stability and security of the Sahel,” he said.
Also referring to sacrifices of African troops in the fight against Nazi Germany in World War II, he added: “If African soldiers, sometimes forcibly mobilised, mistreated and ultimately betrayed, had not deployed during World War II to defend France, it would perhaps still be German today.”
In France, the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) said the president’s remarks reveal “a neo-colonial paternalism that is simply intolerable.”
“Such remarks are politically inconsistent and diplomatically totally irresponsible and further weaken our relations with the nations of West Africa,” it added.
The LFI’s figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon added: “Once again, casualness and uncontrolled speech are worsening our country’s international relations.”
A French diplomatic source, asking not to be named, said that Macron’s quote had been taken “out of context” and had been targeting the countries where the coups took place, especially Mali, rather than Chad or Senegal.
