In a very detailed article, Le Monde newspaper tells us about the new French trickery in Africa. This time, their theater is Senegal. The opportunist game specific to France’s African policy is classic. The cowardice with which the power of Emmanuel Macron acts in Africa is seen day by day. Under the exterior of an ogre, Paris acts like a paper tiger on the continent. The digital assaults of the fachos of the tropics pay, because France has come to eat in their hand. The cast is interesting.
Thanks to « Le Monde « , we learn that Paris has sent an emissary to Ousmane Sonko, leader of the new Senegalese fascism, to give pledges in defiance of the values it has constantly proclaimed for decades, on intransigence vis-à-vis the Far Right. It turns out that its values are flexible depending on whether you are on the banks of the Seine or on the Dakar corniche. Who is this envoy from Macron to Mr. Sonko? This is Mrs. Nadège Chouat, number two of the Africa Cellule at the Elysée Palace, who knows our country well from having lived here as director of the French Institute in Dakar. Moreover, at that time, one of her collaborators would have suggested inviting the authors of the collective work “Politisez-vous!” that we were, coming to present it to the institute. She categorically refused on the grounds that we are a small group of dangerous communists who are not very popular. On the other hand, to organize low masses with a fascist, even the leader of the Senegalese opposition, Ms. Chouat finds nothing revolting in it. French diplomacy has accustomed us to a more republican attire and culture.
It is absurd to maintain that Emmanuel Macron is a far-rightist. But it is clear that the rise of this political current does not bother him unduly with regard to his actions and words, his positions and his tolerance vis-à-vis racist and Islamophobic intellectuals. Never had this current been so strong in his country as under his magistrature. As a reminder, the Rassemblement national in France has gone from 8 to 89 deputies in force, for the French government, having trivialized racist and Islamophobic speech.
The far right is not as repugnant to the Elysée as it repels me, as it should be repugnant to any republican and democrat who sanctifies freedom and contradictory debate, but within the limits of the acceptable.
Meeting a man charged with rape by an examining magistrate does not repel Ms. Chouat. As for Philippe Lalliot, a foreign diplomat does not meet a politician in a third country in the middle of a trial. This is a clear pressure on Senegalese Justice and a symbol of the lack of regard that European ambassadors have vis-à-vis Senegalese institutions. This is inappropriate. Who can imagine that in 2017, on the eve of the French Presidential election, the Senegalese ambassador rolls out the red carpet for Mr. Fillon, indicted and called to face the French judges in the case of fictitious jobs?
Who would imagine in France official representatives of the Elysée and the Quai d’Orsay having coffee with a politician, declared presidential candidate, indicted for rape? The values of France are so volatile, and it is sad to see such a great country stoop to this level of decrepitude to preserve basely material interests while proclaiming in a grandiloquent and unbearable way humanist principles. “They take the withering of their soul for humanism and generosity,” said Stendhal. Under the pretext of modernity and pragmatism, Macron adorns himself with indignity. But what to expect from a man who went to N’Djamena to validate the installation of a dynasty in defiance of the elementary rules of democracy. This man can tomorrow cut corners with a fascist Senegalese President. Basically, he would not deny tomorrow to collaborate with the putschists who parade in the sub-region.
Under the pretext of realism and in defense of its companies and soldiers on the continent, France has lost all credibility attached to the values it proclaimed. But that Mr. Macron, Mr. Lalliot and Mrs. Chouat suffer from seeing us walk with our humanist values which are at odds with what the fascism of Mr. Ousmane Sonko embodies.
It is curious that the country of the barrage against the Far Right and of the Republican front is drowning in schemes to secure its rear in the event of the election of the artisans of the « France Dégage« , the leaders of the attackers who flatter xenophobic instincts and who, at each demonstration, loot Auchan and ransack Total, the symbols of the worst Senegalese politics has produced since Blaise Diagne and François Carpot.
Gone are the days when in 2002, the entire French Nation took to the streets, because the far-right candidate had arrived in the second round without any possibility of being elected. It is this country whose head of state wants to be a paragon of democracy and freedoms which sends its secret services and its representatives to plot (the word is fashionable) against the vital interests of the Republic of Senegal, including Mr. Sonko who is no longer an adversary but a declared enemy.
Perhaps because France, still paternalistic and haughty, thinks that Africans are not sophisticated enough to hate the Far Right. Its authorities still consider us as « underdeveloped » nations whose only survival is already a matter of luxury, who should not concern themselves with values or principles.
France supports Ukraine attacked by Russia in the name of great democratic principles and an ideal of freedom. In the case of Senegal, it compromises itself with fascists, zealous admirers of Mr. Poutine, supporters of putschists in Mali, Burkina and Guinea, and preachers of chaos. Paris would honor itself by freeing itself from its opportunism and exercising strict neutrality vis-à-vis Senegalese internal affairs. This is how it will show itself worthy of the beautiful values twhich it claims.
That the Elysée listens to what an opponent, even to the deadly ideology, has to say is not the point, because it is part of the same logic that brings the Palace on avenue Senghor to listen to a French opponent.
What is at stake here, with regard to the information provided by Le Monde, is a form of subtlety, backed up by missions of elements of the secret services and the opening of unofficial channels with a seditious politician who has called for murder of the Head of State, insults our judges and superior officers, threatens our journalists and intellectuals and vilifies our moral figures.
The day when France will again want to stand up against populists and demagogues, in communion between democrats and progressists of all countries, it will have to find us on the front line. Until then, in her cowardice and indecency, she could at least spare us this opportunistic activism and her next lesson in morality.
By Hamidou Anne / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn
- Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH
