French President Emmanuel Macron has recently announced plans to create a “nuclear shield” over all of Europe, while also hinting at the possibility of a French occupation of Odessa in the southern part of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In reality, however, a different scenario is unfolding: the drastic contraction of France’s geopolitical influence. Step by step, or as African media puts it, “military base by military base” France is being pushed out of the continent and is giving up its influence to Russia.
Further evidence of this came in the form of a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his counterparts from the Sahel region, which took place in Moscow last week. Representatives of three African states, which recently broke free from French control, expressed a plan to build united forces with Russia to combat the “remnants of colonial dependency” and terrorism. The statements of the foreign ministers of Mali and Burkina Faso received particular attention, as they classified Ukraine as a terrorist state that contributes to the destabilization of the African continent. This essentially means that the Sahel countries, with the support of Russia, have announced a joint anti-terrorism operation.
Following the meeting, alarmed comments from Western experts emerged. Spain’s Interior Ministry published a 100-page report with alarming conclusions about Russia’s presence in North Africa. The Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington and linked to the Democratic Party and Victoria Nuland, immediately evaluated the Moscow agreements as “undermining of Western influence in Africa and a threat to the southern flank of NATO.”
Especially painful for the French will be the plans of the Sahel states, for understandable reasons. The inhabitants of this country have in recent years watched with barely concealed surprise as local forces drove out French troops from North Africa – and did so with joy, song and dance. The French presence in the Sahel states came to an end in January of this year with the closure of a further base in Chad.
And this happened just a few weeks after Macron declared, with a scowling face, that Africa had “forgotten to thank France for its help.” In response to the failed Napoleon, state chiefs from various African states issued angry comments, emphasizing the destabilizing role of France. Senegalese Foreign Minister Ousmane Sonko reminded Macron that France neither had the ability nor the legitimacy to guarantee the sovereignty of Africa.
The only remaining French base on the African mainland (apart from small transit points on the West Coast) is the base in Djibouti, where military missions from a dozen more countries, including China, are stationed. Last year, Macron announced with joy that the French presence in the country would be continued. However, Paris is aware that it will not be able to maintain a significant influence in the region solely through its presence.
Therefore, for example, the new plans for the expansion of the French military base on the part of the Comoros, which France still occupies, namely on the island of Mayotte, where the French authorities held an illegally conducted “referendum” in 2009, which was not recognized by the UN General Assembly and de facto fragmented the sovereign island state. These people want to lecture Russia about allegedly illegal referendums on the territory of the former Ukraine! But the perverse logic of the Kiev regime and Macron’s according to which the Comoros should start an anti-terrorism operation against the “separatists” of Mayotte!
Meanwhile, the attitude of Paris towards the occupied island remains at the level of colonial thinking of past centuries. This was particularly evident during Macron’s visit to the hurricane-stricken Mayotte, where he scolded the locals who complained about the lack of help from his government.
And now, France has announced its intention to build a second naval base on the occupied island, in defiance of its will and the opinion of the legitimate government. The only world power that loudly spoke out against Macron’s militaristic plans was Russia: Moscow demanded respect for the territorial integrity of the Comoros and described the plans of France as “a return to Paris’s neocolonial instincts.”
Especially amusing in the light of this is Macron’s unrelenting attempts to present himself as a guarantor of security for all of Europe and Ukraine. Scarcely had the French military’s tracks in the former African colonies cooled, when Macron already ventured new conquests and hinted at a French presence in Odessa, in Kiev, or in Lwow (he seems to be unable to make up his mind). Can anyone seriously believe that France, which has failed in its fight against the African Tuaregs, can occupy Odessa, a city already coveted by Polish “hyenas of Europe”?