Emmanuel Macron - The African Mirror

Jan

2021

France to pull some troops out of Sahel

JOHN IRISH PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron has opened the door to withdrawing some troops from Africa's Sahel region, saying France could "adjust" its operations after successes against Islamist militants and the arrival of more European forces. France, the former colonial power, has the West's largest military presence waging counter-insurgency operations in Mali and the wider Sahel, an arid region of west Africa just below the Sahara desert. Last year, Paris boosted its troop numbers for its Barkhane counter-terrorism operations by 600 to 5,100 soldiers. "The temporary reinforcements that I decided to deploy have enabled the Barkhane force to put in great…

Jan

2021

By The African Mirror

Donors pledge $14 bln for ‘Green Wall’ to hold back Sahara

ENVIRONMENT

DEVELOPMENT banks and states have pledged a total of $14.32 billion over the next four years to build a "Great Green Wall" to help contain desertification in Africa's northern Sahel region, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced. Speaking at an international biodiversity summit in Paris that his government is hosting, Macron said the pledges had exceeded the initial target of $10 billion. Creeping desertification of land on the edges of the Sahara desert that used to be productive is plunging people into desperate poverty and driving some to migrate. The project covers a strip of land stretching 8,000 km (5,000…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

French COVID-19 cases rise as Macron tests positive

WORLD

FRANCE recorded 18,254 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, health director Jerome Salomon has disclosed, a tally not seen since November 20 as infections showed an upward trend again. He spoke at a news conference hours after Emmanuel Macron's office announced the French president had tested positive, prompting a track-and-trace effort across Europe following numerous meetings between Macron and EU leaders. Salomon, who spoke of a "worrying development of the pandemic" a week before Christmas, said the reproduction rate of the disease had gone above 1 again, at 1.03. A level below 1 is needed to gradually contain…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Macron tests positive for COVID-19, forcing leaders to self isolate

WORLD

THE President of France, Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for coronavirus, his office said, prompting a track and trace effort across Europe following meetings between the French leader and EU heads of government in recent days. Macron, 42, was running the country remotely after going into quarantine in the Élysée Palace, the presidency said. His wife Brigitte was also self-isolating. "This diagnosis was made following a PCR test performed at the onset of the first symptoms," Macron's office said, declining to give further details of his conditions or the symptoms he had. Macron will cancel all upcoming trips including a…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Alongside Sisi, Macron says France will sell arms to Egypt irrespective of rights

NEWS

JOHN IRISH FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has said would not condition the sale of weapons to Egypt on human rights because he did not want to weaken Cairo's ability to counter-terrorism in the region, a comment likely to draw the ire of critics. Both states - which share concerns about instability across the Sahel, threats from jihadist groups in Egypt and the political vacuum in Libya - have cultivated closer economic and military ties during President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's rise to power. But 17 French and international human rights groups issued a statement ahead of a visit by Sisi to…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Europe must strengthen border controls after attacks, says Macron

WORLD

EUROPE must rethink its open-border Schengen area, including a more robust protection of the zone's external frontiers, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, after a spate of Islamist attacks in France and Austria. The tighter controls were needed to curb clandestine immigration, said Macron, adding that the criminal gangs illegally trafficking migrants into Europe were often linked to terror networks. "I am in favour of a deep overhaul of Schengen to re-think its organisation and to strengthen our common border security with a proper border force," Macron said during a visit to the Franco-Spanish border. The president said he would…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Three dead as woman beheaded in attack in French church

WORLD

TANGI SALAUN and ERIC GAILLARD A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) has beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in the French city of Nice. A defiant President Emmanuel Macron, declaring that France had been subject to an Islamist terrorist attack, said he would deploy thousands more soldiers to protect important French sites, such as places of worship and schools. Speaking from the scene, he said France had been attacked "over our values, for our taste for freedom, for the ability on our soil to have freedom of belief". "And I say it…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

France warns citizens to be cautious as anger seethes in Muslim world over cartoons

WORLD

CHRISTIAN LOWE and ANDREW OSBORN FRANCE warned its citizens in several Muslim-majority countries to take extra security precautions on Tuesday as anger surged over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, and the head of Russia's Chechnya region said Paris was pushing people towards terrorism. In Bangladesh, thousands of protesters marched through the capital, with some stamping on a poster of French President Emmanuel Macron, and Iran summoned the French charge d'affaires to register a protest over the cartoons. But in a sign that some countries want to limit the fallout, Saudi Arabia - while condemning the cartoons - held back from…

Jul

2020

By The African Mirror

France, Germany, Italy threaten sanctions over arms for Libya

NEWS

THE leaders of France, Germany and Italy on Saturday threatened for the first time to use sanctions against countries that continued to violate a United Nations arms embargo on Libya. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged "all foreign actors to end their increasing interference and to fully respect the arms embargo established by the United Nations Security Council" in a joint statement issued by the French presidency after meeting in Brussels. "We are ready to consider the possible use of sanctions if the breaches of the embargo at sea, on land…