The French president participates in the One Forest Summit in Libreville with several heads of Central African States, at the beginning of a four -day tour in the region.
Mo12345lemonde With AFP
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, participates Thursday, March 2 in Libreville with several heads of Central African States at a summit devoted to the protection of tropical forests, at the beginning of a four -day tour in the region.
m. Macron arrived in the capital of Gabon on Wednesday evening and was received at the presidential palace by his counterpart Ali Bongo Ondimba.
This summit, baptized One Forest Summit, and co-organized by the two countries, is intended to find “concrete solutions” for the conservation of forests, the protection of the climate and species in a context of climate change, but “The objective will not be to have new political statements adopt,” the organizers said in advance. They specify that it will above all have the vocation to implement the objectives set by the Paris climate agreement (2015) and the COP15 of Montreal on biodiversity (2022).
The French Head of State must go to the morning to the Arboretum Raponda Walker park, one of the protected areas of the Gabonese coast north of Libreville, before joining the presidential palace for meetings with scientists, NGOs and private sector players in the afternoon.
Other heads of states including Denis Sassou-Nguesso (Congo-Brazzaville), Faustin-Archange Touadéra (Central African Republic), Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno (Chad) or Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea) will also travel . The French and Gabonese presidents will conclude the summit by two speeches at the end of the day.
One Forest Summit started on Wednesday with exchanges between ministers, civil society and experts on several themes (sustainable forest management, biodiversity, funding).
decreasing influence
However, the arrival of Emmanuel Macron was criticized by part of the political opposition and Gabonese civil society, accusing him of coming to “soften” Ali Bongo, elected in controversial conditions in 2016 and probable candidate to his re -election this year.
This is the eighteenth trip from Emmanuel Macron to Africa, since the start of his first five-year term in 2017, where French influence and presence are increasingly questioned.
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Since 2022, the French army was pushed outside Mali and Burkina Faso by the power in these two countries. Burkina has just denounced a “military assistance agreement” signed in 1961 with France, the day after the country’s independence.
Strong the mercenaries of the Wagner group and disinformation campaigns which fuel the anti -French feeling, Russia Lady increasingly the pawn in Paris in this sphere of historical French influence.
Emmanuel Macron exhibited on Monday, from Paris, his African strategy for the next four years. He advocated “humility” and encouraged a new “balanced” and “responsible” partnership with African countries. He also announced a reduction in the French military presence, concentrated for ten years on the fight against jihadism in the Sahel.
After Gabon, the French president will travel to Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Angola, the Head of State will sign an agreement to develop the agricultural sector there.
He will then have a brief stopover in Brazzaville, where Denis Sassou Nguesso has been running the Congo with an iron fist for almost forty years. A meeting that risks, again, to appear against the tide of his speech on Monday.
He will conclude his tour in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ex-Belgian but also the largest French-speaking country in the world, where President Félix Tshisekedi, in power since January 2019, is preparing for an electoral deadline this year.
This step can also prove to be delicate while France is accused in the DRC of supporting Rwanda rather than Kinshasa, confronted with a rebellion in the east of the country.