YANNICK NOAH. This Tuesday, July 26, 2022, singer and former tennis player Yannick Noah welcomes Emmanuel Macron to the village of which he is chief, in Cameroon.
[Mis à jour le 26 juillet 2022 à 23h50] Emmanuel Macron is traveling in Africa. This Tuesday, July 26, 2022, he is in Cameroon. On the program, in particular, a meeting with the great French tennis champion, Yannick Noah. The singer is now a village chief in Cameroon. The President of the French Republic must, among other things, meet young people, in Etoudi, the singer’s district, at the exit of the capital Yaoundé. Indeed, “it is not me who receives the French president, but the whole village”, entrusted Yannick Noah to AFP, before his first meeting with Emmanuel Macron. According to Ulysse Gosset, political columnist for BFM TV, special correspondent in Cameroon, young people must discuss with Emmanuel Macron, in particular to talk about democracy. They only knew as president Paul Biya, at the head of the country for 40 years. Similarly, the President of the Republic had to evoke the colonial past and the relations between France and the continent African.
Before meeting Yannick Noah, Emmanuel Macron spoke in Yaoundé, the country’s capital. And the least we can say is that the Head of State had a clear message to convey: a critique of Russian influence in Africa. “I see hypocrisy too often, especially on the African continent […] not knowing how to qualify a war, because there are diplomatic pressures, I am not fooled”, explained Emmanuel Macron, without naming Russia.
The war in Ukraine has revealed the pre-existence of food dependency for many countries, especially on the African continent. To get out of it, we have to move from an emergency response to a structural response. This is the objective of the FARM initiative: pic.twitter.com/ApJ9KcJM6S
—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 26, 2022
Yannick Noah inherited the title of traditional chief after the death of his father in 2017. Very attached to this district of Yaoundé, where he lived his childhood between the ages of 2 and 12 and where he now spends six months of the year, the singer decided to contribute to its development. He notably restored the “country club”, now embellished with a bar, restaurant, tennis and basketball courts and bungalows.
After welcoming Emmanuel Macron at the entrance to the “Noah village”, the artist and sportsman led him to the family vault, where his grandfather and his father are buried. The President of the Republic then addressed the education of local young people, but also the environment and colonial memory.
Who is Cécilia Rodhe, the ex-wife of Yannick Noah?
Yannick Noah had a full life and career. From tennis champion to one of the most popular French singers, certain aspects of his life continue to make ink flow. This is particularly the case with his private life, which, it seems, has intrigued the French since the 80s. Dad of five children, Yannick Noah has been married three times. The first woman the sportsman married was Cécilia Rodhe, a Swedish sculptor and model. Elected Miss Sweden in 1978, she formalized her relationship with Yannick Noah with their marriage, celebrated in 1984. From this marriage were born two children: Joakim, famous professional basketball player in the United States, born in 1985 and Yéléna, born the year next.
At the time, the couple left France and went to live in New York. Yannick Noah will open a restaurant there, in Manhattan, called Guignol’s. In 1985, the same year as the birth of the couple’s daughter, they decided to separate. But even today, Yannick Noah and Cécilia Rodhe have remained on good terms, having each rebuilt their lives. After this relationship, the tennis player remarried with Heather Stewart-Whyte, with whom he had two children, Elijah and Jénayé, then with Isabelle Camus, mother of Yannick Noah’s fifth child, Joalukas.