🇫🇷🇨🇩 African elites can no longer fake it for Macron or the French.

The days of when they were obliged to humour French presidents that France still wielded its power across the continent in the post-independence period are long gone, which was proved by Macron’s shameful press conference where he spoke down to the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president Felix Tshisekedi.

With France’s decline from the world stage – and in particular Africa – and the emergence of Russia and China as more serious investors in the continent, it was perhaps inevitable that a tantrum of some sort was on the cards. But with the outburst, came a baptism of lies.

The irony of that press conference though is that Macron patronized the DRC president from beginning to end, even suggesting that the African leader could not distinguish between the state and the media due to the DRC’s apparent arrested development of freedom of press.

Even that was a lie 🤥

💬 Martin Jay writes on how France’s president anoints himself in lies, treachery and smear campaigns in the African continent.

#France #Macron #DRC #Africa #neocolonialism

@strategic_culture

🇫🇷 French President Emmanuel Macron has got the Americans in a flap with his comments advocating greater European strategic autonomy and for the old continent to avoid becoming embroiled in a U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan.

Macron made his remarks while traveling back from China where he appeared to have been well received by President Xi Jinping. The trip reportedly garnered several lucrative trade deals for French businesses at a time when Élysée Palace is assailed with nationwide public protests and strikes over economic woes.

The American chagrin over Macron’s musings about European strategic autonomy is revealing in at least two ways.

The New York Times sniffily accused Macron of playing the “Gaullist card” while the Wall Street Journal censured the French leader for “blundering on Taiwan”, adding, “He weakens deterrence against Chinese aggression and undermines U.S. support for Europe”.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio was palpably miffed and demanded that Macron should clarify “quickly” whether he was speaking for Europe as a whole or for France alone. In a huff, Rubio said, “You guys [European leaders] handle Ukraine” because the U.S. would henceforth focus its attention on “China’s threats”.

You have to laugh at the misplaced sense of American chivalry. This is the usual American trope of believing that they are once again salvaging Europe from conflict, as in the First and Second World Wars. Uncle Sam, as Rubio suggests, is going to abandon Europe to its bloody squabbling while getting on with “dealing” with purported “Chinese aggression”.

Despite his geopolitical impotence and reliable vassalage, the American fury at Macron’s comments is instructive 💥

💬 Read more by Finian Cunningham

#Macron #France #West

@strategic_culture