Africa-Press – Cape verde. Paris still displays a “paternalistic, condescending and contemptuous attitude towards Africa,” a Nigerian essayist told Sputnik. His statement follows Emmanuel Macron’s accusations against Russia for its so-called “predatory” ambitions on the continent.
The French president recently denounced Russia’s “predatory project” on the African continent, but how much leeway does Paris have for itself? Nassirou Bodo Seyni, essayist and member of the Tous Pour La République political movement, commented on the situation for Sputnik.
According to Bodo Seyni, France has always expressed that feeling when partners want to come and work in Africa: “It goes without saying that Macron believes that since they are predators, everyone else is.”
On the sidelines of the French-speaking countries’ summit in Tunisia, Emmanuel Macron was asked to respond to criticism that Paris exploited its economic and historical ties with its former colonies to serve its own interests.
The French president responded that “this perception [was] fed […] by others”, by “influencers paid by the Russians.” ‘Inheritors’ of ‘Slavery’
The Nigerian essayist also questioned Macron’s claim that neither he nor the African youth have ever experienced colonization. “If he puts forward this idea, it means that the President ‘lacks historical awareness,’” Nassirou Bodo Seyni said.
When a person is born in 1980, his or her parents may have come “from colonization,” the specialist explained. Drawing a parallel, he recalled that Macron “was born in a France, which benefited [and] still benefits from this colonization and which has […] plundered Africa from the point of view of natural riches, from the cultural point of view, which has destroyed and deconstructed Africa in its basic structural foundations.” Sovereignty Respected Comparing the attitude of powers like China, Russia or Turkey towards Africa, France lacks respect, he argued.
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