Macron begins his regional tour of Africa in Cameroon

One of the least perceptible aspects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the catalyst for the new geopolitical scenario, is the melee between the West and Russia to gain, or at least not lose, influence in Africa. The game board is becoming wider, more complex and involves more players in the game compared to the bipolarity of the Cold War, but analogies are unavoidable. The race for the African continent has begun, once again, and the tenant of the Elysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron, and the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, have been responsible for staging it. 

The French president began his three-day tour of Africa on Tuesday, a trip that will take him to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau to rebuild bilateral relations and boost France's flagging role in the region. Accompanied by the experienced foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, as well as the minister of the armed forces, Sébastien Lecornu, the minister delegate for foreign trade, Olivier Becht, and the secretary of state for development, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Macron is making the first African tour of his second five-year term in what is also his first trip outside Europe since he was re-elected in April.

Macron had never before visited any of these three countries as president, a symptom of the rebalancing of forces undertaken by France on the continent following the resounding failure in Mali, where the ruling military junta decided to expel all traces of France from the country, starting with Operation Barkhane, the spearhead of the anti-terrorist missions. Withdrawal from the heart of the Sahel, the epicentre of the rivalry, forces Paris to seek new partners and consolidate its presence with its usual allies. This is not easy. Faced with a shaken France, Russia is gaining momentum. Lavrov, the Kremlin's extension abroad, who is also touring Africa, seems to have taken the lead.

Macron's agenda is profuse, there are too many papers on the table, too many issues to resolve. The French president, comfortably re-elected in office but weakened domestically after the legislative elections that undid his absolute majority in the lower house, faces an even more adverse scenario externally, especially on the African continent. With issues such as food insecurity, the rising cost of living and the proliferation of the jihadist threat on the horizon, France will have to act to contain social discontent, weaken the armed insurgency and halt Moscow's advance in West Africa.

Received on Monday night by Cameroon's Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, Macron landed at Yaoundé airport surrounded by a cloud of cameras. There is a certain amount of expectation in the country about the consequences of his visit. So much so that the authorities have decked out the capital of Central Africa's leading economy by tearing down shacks and street stalls. All the details are important. The president was scheduled to hold a debate with leading figures in Cameroonian civil society, with some of the young people who took part in the Africa-France Summit held in Montpellier at the end of 2021.

Earlier, Macron met with the long-serving Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Almost nonagenarian and with four decades at the head of the government, Biya has established an autocracy through electoral rigging, clientelistic networks and political persecution. This has not endeared him to France. Now, with a regime in its twilight years and with infighting to succeed him raging, the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency in the north and the conflict with separatists in the English-speaking regions of the east of the country are worsening the situation. The Elysée's reaction takes on greater importance. 

Certain sectors of the opposition hope that the French president will succeed in persuading Biya to step aside from power and facilitate a peaceful transition. Any hint of instability would spray even more gasoline on a region in flames. However, the Cameroonian is not expected to accept. France does not want to leave anything to chance either, and will bet on maintaining its position at all costs in a place where Chinese companies and actors such as Russia, which signed a military cooperation agreement with Yaoundé in May in a context of insecurity marked by the growing presence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group in the region, have gained ground.

On Wednesday, Macron will head to Benin to meet with President Patrice Talon. The wealthy cotton businessman, in power since 2016 after returning from self-imposed exile in France after being accused of leading a plot to kill former president Yayi Boni, has degraded Benin's democratic system, one of the most developed in the region, by using institutions to persecute the political opposition. Cases of arbitrary arrests and police brutality have been repeated in recent years. But other issues are on the French leader's agenda. 

The Elysee said in a statement that there is "a request for French support in terms of air support, intelligence and equipment" from the Beninese authorities to combat the jihadist threat. The north of the country has seen an increase in terrorist attacks in recent weeks from the Sahel, and France wants to expand military cooperation following the reorganisation of forces and the forced exit from Mali. Less presence and exposure, but better methods, Macron argued. There are still no concrete proposals or signs of improvement.

"Compared to the other Sahel countries, Mali remains the epicentre of the crisis in this region, if Mali stabilises, the other countries will gradually stabilise," Malian consultant Oumalha Haïdara tells Atalayar. "There is no better state, all the Sahel countries are in bad shape, and not only in terms of security. With the rapid spread of terrorism, if states do not anticipate, the whole Sahel will be contaminated, even coastal countries like Benin and Senegal," he warns. 

The French President will close his tour in Guinea-Bissau, where he will meet President Umaro Sissoco Embaló. In February, a group of armed men linked to criminal drug trafficking organisations stormed the presidential residence with gunfire. The coup, aimed at killing the 2020 elected leader and his prime minister, was stopped in time by the security forces, but instability continues. Macron will visit the country to take advantage of the fact that Sissoco Embaló holds the rotating presidency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional body that sanctioned Mali's military coup clique. 

The French president will try to convince his counterparts that France maintains its credibility as a partner, a credibility undermined by Barkhane's experience and the reaction of the military authorities in Bamako. As the former French ambassador to Mali, Nicolas Normand, pointed out to this newspaper, "Paris' main partners in the region are Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin and Togo. All of these countries ask for and count on French assistance'. In the background, issues such as rampant food insecurity on the African continent, aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, for which locals increasingly blame Western sanctions, will play a role. The dispute is all about the message.