President Macron's First African Tour
- Thread starter thatrapsfan
- Start date
I can't lie this dude is smooth as hell.
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Macron's promise of new France-Africa ties raises heckles
Marine Pennetier
4 Min Read
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting with Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore at the Presidential Palace in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Ludovic Marin/Pool
But a youth protest against him, stones pelting one of his delegation’s vehicles and a botched grenade attack on French troops hours before his arrival in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou showed the hostility that still lingers after decades of an often tense France-Africa relationship.
Macron was also subjected to rowdy student questions at the university after his speech in Ouagadougou, and was sometimes left fruitlessly hushing as he struggled to get his answers heard above the crowd.
In his speech, peppered with references to African nationalists such as Nelson Mandela and Burkina’s revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, Macron promised a break with a past in which France often seemed to call the shots to former colonies.
“I am from a generation that doesn’t come to tell Africans what to do,” Macron said, prompting applause.
“I am from a generation for whom Nelson Mandela’s victory is one of the best political memories.”
The 39-year-old is on a three-day visit to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ivory Coast aimed at boosting cooperation in education, the digital economy and migration.
“I will be alongside those who believe that Africa is neither a lost continent or one that needs to be saved,” he said.
The grenade attack missed the French soldiers but wounded three civilians hours before Macron arrived. No group claimed responsibility.
Stones were thrown at a delegation convoy, however Macron was far away from it at a meeting with his Burkina counterpart, Roch Marc Kabore in the presidential palace.
Dozens of local youths clashed with security forces in the center of the capital throwing stones. Police responded with teargas. Protesters burnt T-shirts with images of Macron and carried slogans including “Down with new-colonialism” and “French military out of Burkina”.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the Ouagadougou University, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
BREAK WITH PAST?
It was not the first time a French president has promised to break with past French politics on the continent.
Macron’s predecessor Francois Hollande declared while visiting Senegal in 2012 that “the time of La Francafrique is over”, referring to a shadowy network of diplomats, soldiers and businessmen who manipulated African leaders for decades after independence.
Slideshow (7 Images)
But it comes at a tense time, when French troops are being sucked deeper into a years-long battle to quell Islamist militancy in the Sahel region.
France has 4,000 troops deployed there, and there are mixed feelings about their presence - highlighted in a bitter row between France and Mali over the deaths of 11 Malian troops being held captive by Islamist militants in a French air strike.
The French are pinning their hopes on the so-called G5 Sahel force being set up by regional country’s with French and American backing. It launched a campaign on Oct. 28 amid growing unrest in the desert reaches of the region, where jihadists allied to al Qaeda or inspired by Islamic State roam undetected.
Macron earlier told journalists G5 had been too slow to get established.
Related Coverage
He said he would call for greater co-operation between Europe and Africa to tackle human trafficking and he touted a European initiative to rescue African migrants from being enslaved in Libya.
The exchange with heckling students was typical Macron, who during his presidential campaign often managed to turn initially hostile crowds in his favor by answering questions head on.
“You speak to me like I‘m a colonial power, but I don’t want to look after electricity in Burkina Faso. That’s the work of your president,” he retorted to one hostile questioner.
Marine Pennetier
4 Min Read
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting with Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore at the Presidential Palace in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Ludovic Marin/Pool
But a youth protest against him, stones pelting one of his delegation’s vehicles and a botched grenade attack on French troops hours before his arrival in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou showed the hostility that still lingers after decades of an often tense France-Africa relationship.
Macron was also subjected to rowdy student questions at the university after his speech in Ouagadougou, and was sometimes left fruitlessly hushing as he struggled to get his answers heard above the crowd.
In his speech, peppered with references to African nationalists such as Nelson Mandela and Burkina’s revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, Macron promised a break with a past in which France often seemed to call the shots to former colonies.
“I am from a generation that doesn’t come to tell Africans what to do,” Macron said, prompting applause.
“I am from a generation for whom Nelson Mandela’s victory is one of the best political memories.”
The 39-year-old is on a three-day visit to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ivory Coast aimed at boosting cooperation in education, the digital economy and migration.
“I will be alongside those who believe that Africa is neither a lost continent or one that needs to be saved,” he said.
The grenade attack missed the French soldiers but wounded three civilians hours before Macron arrived. No group claimed responsibility.
Stones were thrown at a delegation convoy, however Macron was far away from it at a meeting with his Burkina counterpart, Roch Marc Kabore in the presidential palace.
Dozens of local youths clashed with security forces in the center of the capital throwing stones. Police responded with teargas. Protesters burnt T-shirts with images of Macron and carried slogans including “Down with new-colonialism” and “French military out of Burkina”.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the Ouagadougou University, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
BREAK WITH PAST?
It was not the first time a French president has promised to break with past French politics on the continent.
Macron’s predecessor Francois Hollande declared while visiting Senegal in 2012 that “the time of La Francafrique is over”, referring to a shadowy network of diplomats, soldiers and businessmen who manipulated African leaders for decades after independence.
Slideshow (7 Images)
But it comes at a tense time, when French troops are being sucked deeper into a years-long battle to quell Islamist militancy in the Sahel region.
France has 4,000 troops deployed there, and there are mixed feelings about their presence - highlighted in a bitter row between France and Mali over the deaths of 11 Malian troops being held captive by Islamist militants in a French air strike.
The French are pinning their hopes on the so-called G5 Sahel force being set up by regional country’s with French and American backing. It launched a campaign on Oct. 28 amid growing unrest in the desert reaches of the region, where jihadists allied to al Qaeda or inspired by Islamic State roam undetected.
Macron earlier told journalists G5 had been too slow to get established.
Related Coverage
He said he would call for greater co-operation between Europe and Africa to tackle human trafficking and he touted a European initiative to rescue African migrants from being enslaved in Libya.
The exchange with heckling students was typical Macron, who during his presidential campaign often managed to turn initially hostile crowds in his favor by answering questions head on.
“You speak to me like I‘m a colonial power, but I don’t want to look after electricity in Burkina Faso. That’s the work of your president,” he retorted to one hostile questioner.
Frangala
All Star
The President had that nervous laugh when he said "C'est le travail du President" it's the president's job. African leaders are useless but Macron is being disingenuous when he downplays France's role in the region. The slave crisis in Libya is partly because of France and if you go throughout Francophone West Africa you have a lot of economic interests in the region from Orange Telecoms, Bollore Logistics, Areva, Carrefour etc...
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Its a migrant trafficking crisis first and foremost, this story has taken its own life, but vast majority still revolves around migrant trafficking not chattel slavery. Look at the below report from yesterday.
If you look at the top countries of asylum seekers in Europe there are plenty of non-Franco African countries (Eritrea, Somalia, Gambia) The main trigger for migration is the same throughout the continent. Young ambitious populations with not enough gainful employment. Even in places with plenty of stability young people have incentive to try their luck, when they see their hopes being limited by their environment. The only thing that can reverse this is inclusive economic development that creates meaningful employment for huge young populations. Unless that reverses people will continue to stream North, with full knowledge of the risks theyre taking. In Somalia for example I know there are plenty of campaigns to try to enlighten prospective migrants about the dangers that may await them, but thousands still travel regardless. IMO migration is a natural human desire when people are underemployed.
FEATURE-Fake coastguards and taxi cabs fuel Libya's migrant trade
YAOUNDE, Nov 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When uniformed men boarded the overloaded rubber dingy carrying Christelle Timdi and her boyfriend to a new life in Europe she thought the Italian coastguard had come to rescue them.
But the men took out guns and began to shoot. "Many people fell in the sea," the 32-year-old Cameroonian said as she described seeing her boyfriend, Douglas, falling in the water and disappearing into the darkness.
The gunmen took Timdi and her fellow passengers back to Libya where they were locked up, raped, beaten and forced to make calls to their families back home for ransom payments to secure their freedom.
Timdi, who flew back to Cameroon last week, told her story as international outcry escalated over a video which appeared to show African migrants being traded as slaves in Libya.
Libya's U.N.-backed government has said it is investigating and has promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Timdi said she had not seen the footage broadcast by CNN, but had witnessed the trade in humans while in Libya.
"I saw it with my own eyes," she said, describing how she had seen a Senegalese man buying an African migrant.
Libya is the main jumping off point for migrants trying to reach Europe by boat.
Timdi said many traffickers posed as marine guards, police officers and taxi drivers to ensnare victims.
RAPED AND BEATEN
There were around 130 other migrants on her boat when the gunmen opened fire in the middle of the night, Timdi said.
After being taken back to Libya they were locked in an abandoned factory building where men would grab and rape the girls and women - and sometimes even the men.
"We tried to hide the younger girls among us," Timdi said, describing the terrifying moments when the guards would scour the room with torches, searching for their next victims.
"I was heavily pregnant - that's why I wasn't raped. And it's all done in front of others - they say it's so that you know what will happen to you if you don't pay up."
Timdi said the facilities used by traffickers appeared to be well organised and guarded, adding that most people inside wore fake police or military uniforms.
"The place was surrounded by army-style vehicles with guns ready to fire, so we didn't dare try and escape."
Timdi's family paid 1 million CFA francs ($1,800), frantically collected from relatives and friends, to free her. But she said ransoms were no guarantee of safety.
The traffickers work with a network of taxi drivers who are supposed to transfer released migrants to migrant camps – but who often re-traffick them, Timdi said.
"If they send you a good taxi, you'll arrive at your destination, but if it's a bad taxi the driver will sell you on to someone else," she said.
"There are people who have been resold twice, three times. And when you call your family to tell them that you've been resold once again, no one will believe you, they won't send more money to free you."
Timdi was released by her captors in October and gave birth to a baby girl, Brittanie, in a Libyan hospital just days later.
Foka Fotsi, a Cameroonian migrant who tried to reach Europe through Libya, shows the injuries on his head after traffickers beat him. November 22 2017. Inna Lazareva/Thomson Reuters Foundation
"WE NEED OPPORTUNITIES"
Foka Fotsi, a Cameroonian migrant who was trafficked twice, said the clandestine trafficking networks in Libya comprised many nationalities.
Those in charge of one of the places where he was held included Ghanaians and Nigerians, he said.
Unable to find work to support his family, Fotsi decided to leave Cameroon last year, but fell into the hands of a Libyan kidnap ring before reaching Europe.
"There was torture like I've never seen. They hit you with wooden bats, with iron bars," he said, removing the hood of his sweatshirt and showing the still raw red wounds on his skull.
"They hang you from the ceiling by (your) arms and legs and then throw you down to the floor. They swing you and throw you against the wall, over and over again, ten times.
"They are not human beings. They are the devil personified."
Timdi and Fotsi were among 250 Cameroonians who were flown home this week by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as part of a voluntary return scheme for migrants stranded in Libya.
A group of Cameroonian migrants brought back to Yaoundé from Libya pictured on November 22 2017. Inna Lazareva/ Thomson Reuters Foundation
The programme, funded by the European Union, provided returnees with clothing and medical checks. The most vulnerable, including pregnant women, also received around 400 euros ($475).
IOM Cameroon head Boubacar Saybou said it was launching a programme to help migrants set up businesses, and will also provide start-up funding.
"We need to create opportunities for them here. That's what's important," he said.
Fotsi said he hoped to follow up on the scheme. But for now his most pressing problem was finding a place to sleep.
"I pray that God gives me work that I can do here," he said.
"If we don't get work you'll find many of us walking the streets again."
($1 = 0.8422 euros)($1 = 550.0000 CFA francs)
people are migrating from Africa not just the Francophone countries. If you look at the
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Yeah...don't know about this one. I haven't watched the whole thing so I don't know how the question was originally phrased and what was the "mood" of the meeting, but we all know how entrenched France is in Western Africa. Obviously it's bigger than electricity in this or that university.
Anyways I guess he said he wants to break with the habits from the past, build up partnerships and whatnot...basically what French presidents say all the time. I'm more interested to see what African leaders will do to change habits. Burkina Faso actually closed its schools for two days like this was some day to be celebrated nationally or something
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
@thatknickfan here some ressources, haven't watched/read yet though
full speech :
Common article by F.Sarr and A.Mbembe before the speech : « Africains, il n’y a rien à attendre de la France que nous ne puissions nous offrir à nous-mêmes ! »
full speech :
Common article by F.Sarr and A.Mbembe before the speech : « Africains, il n’y a rien à attendre de la France que nous ne puissions nous offrir à nous-mêmes ! »