African leaders condemn “France would perhaps still be German today” if African troops hadn’t fought for France during World War One, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, who implied that African nations owed Paris their sovereignty.
After complaining that African nations “forgot to say thank you” for France’s ten-year military deployment to combat militant insurgency, President Emmanuel Macron is facing a furious backlash from France’s remaining allies in West Africa and accusations of displaying a neo-colonialist attitude at home.
“I believe they overlooked saying “thankyou”. In a speech to French diplomats on Monday, Macron stated, “It doesn’t matter; it will come with time”.
“We did the right thing”, he said of the military deployment, adding that without such involvement, “none” of the Sahelian states would be “sovereign” today.
“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 stated. “France no longer had a place there because we are not the assistants of putschists”.
Following military takeovers in Mali in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022, and Niger in 2023 that overthrew elected governments and compelled the evacuation of French forces, France has been disadvantaged in its old colonial territory in the Sahel region of francophone West Africa.
Paris maintained closer ties with Senegal and Chad as Russia increased its influence in all three nations, but both nations have now declared that French forces should withdraw.
In order to combat insurgencies, France launched a military operation in Mali and the Sahel region in 2013 under then-President Francois Hollande.
The action, initially called Serval and then called Barkhane, claimed the lives of fifty eight French soldiers.
“Acknowledge and respect Africans”.
Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the president of Chad, said that Macron was “in the wrong era” and that he wished “to express my outrage” over comments that “border on contempt for Africa and Africans”.
Earlier, Abderaman Koulamallah, the acting foreign minister of Chad, claimed that the comments demonstrated a “contemptuous attitude towards African and Africans”, and that French politicians “had to learn to respect Africans”.
Koulamallah pointed out that “France has never truly recognized” the “key role” that African and Chad played in the liberation of France during World Wars I and II.
Chad, which housed Paris’s final military installations in the Sahel, terminated the defense and security pacts with the former colonial power at the end of November, claiming they were “obsolete”.
Approximately one thousand French military forces are currently being pulled from the nation.
Meanwhile, Macron came under fire from Senegal Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko for implying that African nations should express appreciation to France.
“France lacks the legitimacy and ability to guarantee the security and sovereignty of Africa. Conversely, it has frequently played a role in destabilizing some African nations, like Libya, with terrible results for the Sahelian region’s peace and security,” he stated.
“If African soldiers, sometimes forcibly mobilized, mistreated and ultimately betrayed, had not deployed during World War II to defend France, it might still be
German today,” he continued, alluding to the sacrifices made by African troops in the conflict against Nazi Germany during World War II.
The president’s comments, according to France Unbowed (LFI), a hard-left organization, expose “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 continued.
Additionally, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the LFI, stated: “Once again, casualness and uncontrolled speech are worsening our country’s international relations.”
