Macron, 43, has positioned himself as the standard-bearer of a new generation eager to write a new chapter in the relationship between Paris and its former colonies after a long and terrible history that continues to plague modern France.
On the other hand, specific examples from that turbulent past appeared to catch Macron off guard on stage, as he anxiously listened to young Africans decry Paris’ “arrogance” and “paternalism” in its uneven dealings with African countries, and demand that he repents for colonial-era crimes.
When Senegalese social entrepreneur, Cheikh Fall met French President Emmanuel Macron at a parliamentary session of a France-Africa summit last week, he didn’t hold back. During the event on Friday, Fall was one of several young Africans who bombarded Macron with unvarnished criticism of France, which was regarded as part of Macron’s drive to redefine France’s relations with former colonies on the continent.
“I pleaded with Macron to seek forgiveness from Africans, to stop arming African dictators, and to end the phony paternalism,” he stated.
Cheikh Fall
Macron gathered hundreds of artists, young businesspeople, and researchers in Montpellier to abandon the infamous legacy of FrancAfrique, a decade-old gloomy network of French politicians and African elites aiming to maintain French supremacy in post-colonial Africa, with no African head or leader.
Faced with widespread condemnation, Macron promised an open investigation into the colonial past, adding, “It is part of our history and connection.” Macron approved a new government investigation into Algeria’s colonial past, which suggested the formation of a “memories and truth” committee but refused to issue a public apology for the crimes committed.
Macron has also pledged to repatriate certain antiquities stolen from African countries during colonization, declassify secret data on the killing of Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara, and reform rather than abolish the CFA franc, a French-backed currency valid in West Africa by former French colonies. Macron sparked a new feud with Algeria earlier this month when he claimed that the former French colony was governed by a “political-military government” and that its official history had been re-written from its narrative of hostility toward France.
Algeria’s presidency promptly replied to Macron’s “demeaning” remarks, with Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra declaring that France must “decolonize” its history and relieve itself specific behaviors associated with an idealism that standardized “the crime against humanity which was the colonization of Mali, Algeria, and so many African people.”