We Condemn France President’s Disrespectful And Distasteful Remarks About Africa

Public Statement 10th January, 2025

The Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network (SaS-CaN) has noted with concern the recent misleading, disrespectful, distasteful and provocative comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, against African leaders and Africans on the continent and the diasporas.

In his frustration comments to French Ambassadors in Paris, on 6th January, 2025 among others the distinguished French President Emmanuel Macron stated that: The African leaders in the Sahel region, including Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger have forgotten to thank France for its intervention in 2013 to combat what he, the French leader said-jihadist fighters. Macron lashed also at African leaders and accused them of ingratitude. The French leader was speaking from his Élysée Palace (Presidential Palace) in Paris.

These remarks may appear cautionary and sincere in the atmosphere of discourse, they are however very disrespectful, distasteful, insulting and damaging to the leaders of Africa and very degrading to the people of Africa and African descent. The French President remarks are not only shameful, indecent and provocative, but also exposed the real thinking of France and the narrow mind-set of European leaders towards their counterparts in Africa. They are unacceptable, and through this statement, the Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network wants to make it crystal clear that it won’t tolerate any insults to the leaders of the Sahel region, let alone to any other African leader, either in Africa or in the diasporas.

It is now clear that the culture of disrespect and insults towards African leaders is deeply ingrained in the government of France. When the president of France himself has the courage and gut to embark on xenophobic, racist rhetoric spewing against Africa, what can be expected from other political figures in France? This is only a reflection of Europe’s anti-African mind-set. The deafening silence of organisations such as the African Union (AU), to the French president’s cynical, racism and racist remarks is particularly noteworthy in this instance.

The Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network (SaS-CaN) firmly rejects and condemns as malicious and deceitful, the remarks by the French leader, who in recent times has descended to a new level of disrespect for African leaders of the Sahel region. In this regards, we say: “France lacks both the capacity and the moral authority to ensure Africa’s security and sovereignty. On the contrary, it has often destabilized nations like Libya, triggering widespread chaos in the Sahel,” to borrow the words of Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.

It is on record and now alarming that at every gathering, the French president enjoys the luxury of spewing out derogatory and provocative statements against Africa. This is unacceptable and must be condemned by all sane-thinking people. Here is a President, whose country’s colonial past unleashed terror and genocide on Africans on the continent; whose government used weapons of mass destruction to murder over a million Africans in Algerian during the liberation struggle of the North African nation; and whose country tested nuclear weapons in the African Sahara desert and still destroying our environment today with the dumping of nuclear waste.

Here is a President whose country stands indicted for the brutal assassination of leaders in Africa, the merciless rape of the continent’s natural resources and purveying poverty on our people. Here is a President whose country led the criminal war and race purification terrorism against Africans in Libya, in 2011 and until now fuelling violence and war crimes in the North African nation. Here is a President whose country stands indicted for recruiting, training, arming, funding and supporting terrorist outfits, to kill Africans in the Sahel region and wreck the development of that region. Here is a President whose government has in less than two years made 28 attempts to assassinate the President of Burkina Faso-Mr Ibrahim Traore and making action plans aimed at destabilising and overthrowing the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger, using precisely cheap pawns in the West African sub-region.

Concluding, the Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network calls upon all African leaders and governments to disassociate themselves from such unwarranted, scurrilous and disrespectful attacks on the leaders of the Sahel region of Africa. And for the mass of African people, we call on all Africans to rally behind our authentic leaders on the continent. And as said earlier, SaS-CaN will not stand idly by and allow anyone to fuel the flames of hatred, racism, and violence in any parts of Africa.

God bless Africa!

Signed:
Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh
Co-founder and President
The Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network
Sas-CaN

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