The expulsion of the French ambassador and French troops from Niger became a symbol of the loss of French influence in Africa, writes Le Temps. Numerous attempts by Emmanuel Macron to change the country’s image in the region have failed. French diplomacy was forced to realize that its moralizing tone was no longer acceptable for the continent, the publication states.

The page is turning for France on the African continent, writes Le Temps. This process was symbolized by the image of the French ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, who had just fled Niamey after several weeks of confinement in a diplomatic enclave under strict surveillance.

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From the point of view of Paris, this is a real earthquake, the publication notes. In the French-speaking part of the continent, where French ambassadors have always been all-powerful and French troops could act as they pleased, this is unheard of. Nevertheless, new generations of Africans reject this colonial anachronism, in which they see, first of all, the desire of the former colonial power to continue to exercise economic and political control over their country. They can no longer tolerate France’s paternalism and arrogance.

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Even Emmanuel Macron’s calls for humility and a change of approach to relations with the continent didn’t help. Niger was supposed to be the model of this new policy, where the French army put itself at the service of its African ’partners’ to jointly confront the threat of jihad, but this did not save the country from a coup. Now the Republic of Chad, Paris’s last ally in the region, appears to be learning from the example of other African nations ditching the West’s rapacious corporations.

French diplomacy was forced to draw a painful conclusion: the lecturing tone of its leaders infuriates Africans. An example is Macron’s insistence, to no avail, on African countries to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Today, France is discovering that Africa has changed, that younger generations no longer want to be treated the way their parents were treated, the newspaper writes. Paris can only mourn their colonial past in West Africa, where the economy was subordinated to French financial interests.

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