French President Emmanuel Macron aims to revive political and economic relations between the two countries, which are losing ground.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Monday evening in Yaoundé for his first visit to Cameroon and Central Africa, with the aim of reviving the political and economic relations between the two countries, which are in decline. The Head of State was welcomed around 10:40 p.m. local time (11:40 p.m. in France) at the airport by Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute before a short formal ceremony.
This trip, which will also take him to Benin and Guinea Bissau, should allow him to reaffirm his “commitment to the process of renewing France’s relationship with the African continent” at the start of his second five-year term, explained the Élysée.
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Emmanuel Macron is expected Tuesday morning at the presidential palace for an interview with his counterpart Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled Cameroon with an iron fist for nearly 40 years. They are expected to discuss security amid jihadist threats in northern Cameroon, with Boko Haram, and the conflict in the North West and South West that has pitted separatist armed groups against law enforcement for more than five years. .
Emmanuel Macron had provoked the indignation of power by declaring in 2020, after being arrested by an opponent, that he had “put pressure on Paul Biya“on the violence”intolerablein these regions.
The visit comes at a time when France, a former colonial power, is seeing its influence eroded, particularly on the economic and commercial levels, in the face of China, India and Germany. French companies now only represent around 10% of the economy compared to 40% in the 1990s.
After a lunch with Paul Biya and his wife Chantal, Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by several ministers including Catherine Colonna (Foreign Affairs), will meet representatives of youth and civil society. He will end the day in “the Noah village”, hosted by former tennis champion Yannick Noah, who is developing a leisure and education center in a popular district of Yaoundé, where he lives for several months a year.
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