“We are helping the population but we are asking them to open their eyes and realize who is helping and who is harming,” declared French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, on a visit to Abidjan.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Saturday urged the Ivorian population not to be manipulated by Russian propaganda which fuels anti-French sentiment in Africa.
Visiting Abidjan on Friday and Saturday, Catherine Colonna was questioned about the measures taken by France to fight against misinformation.
“If it happens, it’s because there are forces at work telling you nonsense.“, she launched during a visit to the 1949 Library in the popular district of Yopougon where she met the Ivorian Minister for the Promotion of Youth Mamadou Touré. “We have a duty to support the development of the country. You, you have a duty not to be taken for fools“, she added.
France ready to continue its support
She hammered home that France was willing to continue its “support for the country’s prosperity and the inclusion of a youth she described as ambitious” and “talented“.
“We help the population but we ask them to open their eyes and realize who is helping and who is harming“, she then confided to a few journalists.
“There is a question of almost personal responsibility not to allow oneself to be manipulated and not to remain prisoners of false information.“, she added.
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The Ivorian minister, for his part, considered that it was necessary to find the “instruments to analyze, decipher“false information and so”illuminate“.
Many officials from both countries fear that the anti-French propaganda, already at work in neighboring Burkina and Mali, will intensify in Côte d’Ivoire.