Four countries in which the French president has so far never visited. Two of them, Gabon and the DRC, are in an election year.
Emmanuel Macron will begin this tour with a trip to Libreville on March 1 and 2. Alongside Ali Bongo, the French president will co-host the One Forest Summit, a summit on the preservation of tropical forests, an event to which several heads of state have been invited.
Beyond this event, this visit is intended to be strategic as Gabon, a country of the former French pre-square, recently joined the Commonwealth. Problem: this trip arouses the anger of part of the Gabonese civil society and opposition because it will take place a few months before the presidential election. Paris is thus suspected of wanting to bring its support to the current president via this visit. The same suspicion could weigh on the displacement of Emmanuel Macron in the DRC. A presidential election is supposed to take place there in December. This African tour comes in a context of growing anti-French sentiment on the continent.
The French president had originally planned to visit Kinshasa and Luanda during his first five-year term, but the trip was aborted due to the Covid crisis. Emmanuel Macron will this time be able to go to Angola, a country to which France has continued to draw closer in recent years.
At the invitation of Denis Sassou Nguesso, the tenant of the Élysée will also stop in Brazzaville where the last visit of a French president dates back to 2009. The conflict in Ukraine should fuel discussions while at the UN, the Congo-Brazzaville has always refrained from condemning the Russian annexation.