#Macron #arrives #Cameroon #leg #West #Africa #trip
President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Cameroon late Monday at the start of a three-nation tour of West Africa to reinvigorate France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.
Macron was received at Yaounde Airport at around 10:40 p.m. by Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute.
The first trip of his new term outside of Europe, which will also take him to Benin and Guinea-Bissau, should allow Macron “to show the president’s commitment in the process of renewing relations with the African continent,” said a French presidential official, who asked not to be named.
Macron will hold talks with his counterpart Paul Biya (89), who has ruled Cameroon with an iron fist for almost 40 years, at the presidential palace on Tuesday morning.
They are expected to discuss security in Cameroon, which has been plagued by ethnic violence and an insurgency by Anglophone separatists fighting for the independence of two English-speaking provinces since 2017. Northern Cameroon has also seen attacks by Boko Haram jihadists.
Macron had provoked Biya’s outrage in 2020 after declaring that he would put “maximum pressure” on the president because of the “intolerable” violence in the West African country.
His visit comes at a time when the former colonial power France has lost influence compared to China, India and Germany, especially in the economic and trade area.
After lunch with Biya and his wife Chantal, Macron will meet representatives of youth and civil society.
He will end the day at Noah Village, hosted by former tennis champion Yannick Noah, who is developing a leisure and education center in a popular area of Yaounde where he lives for several months a year.
Macron will move to Benin on Wednesday, which has faced deadly attacks by jihadists that have spread from the Sahel to Gulf of Guinea states.
Benin has long been praised for its thriving multi-party democracy. But critics say democracy has steadily eroded under President Patrice Talon over the past half decade.
On Thursday, Macron will end his trip in Guinea-Bissau, which has been beset by political crises as its President Umaro Sissoco Embalo prepares to take the helm of the Economic Community of West African States.
All three countries have been criticized by activists for their rights record, but the Elysee has insisted government and legal issues be addressed, albeit “without media noise but in the form of direct exchanges between heads of state”.
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