A debate and a concert. Emmanuel Macron, in Cameroon on Tuesday, went in the evening to the “village” created by tennis player Yannick Noah in Yaoundé. The former tennis champion and singer welcomed the Head of State to promote “dialogue” between Europeans and Africans. It was the first meeting between the two men. “It’s not me who receives the French president, but the whole village,” he told AFP before the meeting.
At the entrance to the “village Noah”, a mischievous sign specifies that Roland-Garros, the place of the exploit which made the tennis player famous in 1983, is located 7,091 km away. 39 years after this coronation, the ex-champion remains, at 62, one of the most popular French people, thanks in particular to his success in music. But it is now in Etoudi that Yannick Noah spends about six months a year, “and probably more time in the future”. It is here that this native of Sedan (Ardennes), where his father Zacharie was a footballer, lived his childhood, between 2 and 12 years old, when his parents returned to his father’s country. “It was very different back then. I grew up in the middle of the bush, I went to the river because there was no water or electricity. Over time, the city surrounded the village and it became a district of Yaoundé,” he says.
A concert in the evening
His roots in Etoudi were strengthened when he inherited the title of traditional chief on the death of his father in 2017. He then decided to develop the “country club” that he had created on the family grounds, adding a bar, restaurant, tennis and basketball courts, but also pretty traditional-style bungalows in the middle of a vast park at lush vegetation. Yannick Noah also pays a lot of attention to the school created by his mother, a French teacher, in the garden of the family home in the 1960s. 400 students from the neighborhood are now educated there in French and English, both official languages of Cameroon. “My role as leader is above all to help the elderly and to do everything so that the children receive a good education,” he explains again.
On Tuesday, the Franco-Cameroonian welcomed Emmanuel Macron. In particular, he led him to the family vault, a simple white building under large mango and avocado trees, where his grandfather and father rest. Other customary chiefs, in traditional outfits, were present. In the park, Emmanuel Macron met and debated with a dozen young Cameroonians and French people who worked together on the future of relations between Yaoundé and Paris, good governance, the environment and issues of colonial memory.
The end of the evening was more festive marked by a concert of young Cameroonian musicians, before the master of the place took the microphone.