France withdraws in Africa amid accusations of neocolonialism and in the face of Russian and Chinese strength

Emmanuel Macron gave for buried this Thursday the

, a contraction of France and Africa that designates the clientele network of economic, political and military interests that Paris wove from the 1960s with its former colonies.

La

has been languishing for years and is an anachronism of the globalization era, but the French president wanted to make it clear at the start of an African tour marked by growing anti-French sentiment on the continent and the strength of China and Russia.

"The era of the

has passed," Macron said in a speech to the French community in Libreville, the capital of Gabon.

"But sometimes I have the feeling that mentalities are not evolving at the same pace as we are when I read or hear that intentions that it does not have, that it no longer has, are attributed to France."

After Gabon, where he participated in an environmental summit, Macron plans to visit Angola, the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a four-day trip that will be his 18th to Africa since he became president in 2017. The French president visits the continent after a series of painful setbacks for his country: the expulsion of French forces from Mali in the summer of 2022 and from Burkina Faso last February;

growing Chinese economic and Russian military influence;

and accusations of neocolonialism.

France has seen its image and influence deteriorate in recent years.

This is the diagnosis and the solution is a redesign of the strategy.

The new strategy implies, from the outset, a military withdrawal.

After leaving the Sahel, Macron plans to reduce military forces in Africa by the end of the year.

He will not close any of his bases, nor will he abandon the continent altogether, but France will associate local forces and focus on training.

It is about African countries hosting the French military and dissipating the image that they are the ones intervening and maintaining control.

Macron wants at all costs to avoid a repetition of the fiasco in Mali, a country that asked for French help in 2013 in the face of the jihadist advance and that nine years later expelled him amid accusations of neocolonialism.

“We had assumed an exorbitant responsibility,” Macron admitted in a speech and press conference Monday in Paris before flying to Africa.

"I will not allow this situation to be reproduced (...) in which France becomes a scapegoat."

There is a second leg in the new strategy: the economic one.

France has not stopped losing ground to China, Turkey and even partners in the European Union.

Macron, in his speech, shook French companies that believe they can live on the heritage of

and have lost the ability to compete and offer quality services and products.

“We are in a position that is not going in the right direction,” said the president.

"And it is largely our fault, because too often we have lived on income in our relationship with the African continent."

Macron came to power almost six years ago with the aim of recasting France's African policy.

Already then he wanted to bury the

.

He traveled to countries in the English and Portuguese speaking spheres such as South Africa, Ghana, Angola and Nigeria.

He promoted the reform of the CFA franc so that it would be a currency less dependent on Paris.

He faced the colonial past and launched restitutions of looted works of art.

He assumed the mistakes of France in the Rwandan genocide.

He wanted to distance himself from the old leaders and speak directly to the youth as a young French president unburdened by previous generations and colonialism.

“It didn't work, because political reality ended up trapping him,” explains Antoine Glaser, a journalist specializing in Africa and co-author of

(Macron's African Trap).

The clearest example is the military intervention in the Sahel, in which 58 French soldiers died before the Malian military junta forced the end of the operation, an echo of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

These years have been a reality check.

The speech favorable to the reconciliation of memories and the

by colonialism has not served to curb misgivings about the colonial power and anti-French propaganda, while the Russian Wagner militia expanded in the Sahel and other parts of Africa.

And it is not the only setback.

"After the humiliation and failures in the Sahel," says the expert, "[Macron] has realized that, while France acts as a gendarme in Africa, the others do the business, even the European partners themselves."

And he cites Germany, the leading European exporter in Africa.

Paris' response consists, on the one hand, in declaring that the old metropolis no longer has any interest in military competition with Russia, although it does in economic competition.

"I don't feel any nostalgia for the

, but I don't want to leave an absence or a void behind," says Macron.

The answer is also what could be called a return to the basics of African politics as always.

That is, French-speaking African countries such as Gabon or the Republic of the Congo.

Although this leads him to rub shoulders with leaders like the Gabonese Ali Bongo, whose family has governed the country since 1967, or the Congolese Denis Sassou-Nguesso, in power since 1979, with a hiatus in the 1990s.

And although it forces him to accept the fact that, on a vital issue for Europe such as the war in Ukraine, the Republic of Congo abstained from the UN General Assembly vote calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops.

"Now there is, a bit, a desire to reconquer the old traditional French domain," describes Glaser.

And he adds: “[Macron] takes note of globalized Africa.

He says: 'I approach Africa with humility.'

However, when he is humble, it goes without saying, but he was considered to have been arrogant.”

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