The summit, placed under the sign of renewal and refoundation, was held in
Montpellier from October 8 to 10, 2021 for the first time without African headsof state and with the ambition of highlighting civil society. Behind thisMacronian com ', the permanence of French neocolonialism. ---- From October 8 to10, the Africa-France summit, skillfully renamed for the occasion "new summit", avery smooth showcase of France's lackluster presence on the continent, was heldin Montpellier. The occasion for a counter-mobilization, in which the UCL tookpart. Usually little invested by the far left in France, since their creation in1973, these summits have been an opportunity to bring together around the head ofthe French government his African counterparts (mainly French-speakingcountries), and since its beginnings "it's Paris. who has always summoned thoseobliged to scold some, congratulate others, unify points of view on some thornyissue and, along the way, remind the rest of the world of its absolute hold overthe populations of distant lands " [1].For the cancellation of the Africa-France summitsThis 2021 edition was intended to be a "civil society summit", far from closedmeetings between political decision-makers, promoting exchanges between culturalplayers, entrepreneurs, sportswomen and sportsmen, and so on. Marotte of MichaëlDelafosse, PS mayor of Montpellier since 2020, who saw in the reception of thesummit a "new step in the influence" of the metropolis, the event still receivedthe visit of Emmanuel Macron. The Head of State took care to commission AchilleMbembe, a Cameroonian political scientist, to give him a report which advocatesthe "refoundation»Relations between France and the African continent, and tookthe stage on Saturday, October 9, debating alongside twelve young people fromdifferent African countries. An opportunity for the President of the Republic topose as the great refounder of Franco-African relations ahead of the 2022 elections.But many news come to spoil the picture of the harmony of peoples highlighted bythis edition of the summit. The exactions of the French government in Africancountries have indeed been abundantly underlined recently: a coup d'etat quicklyforgotten in Chad, last March, another fiercely considered undemocratic in GuineaConakry, at the beginning of September, the overwhelming Duclert report on therole and the responsibilities of the French army in the genocide of the Tutsi inRwanda in 1994.A movement to denounce the hypocrisy of this summit was quick to form inMontpellier, from the spring of 2021. Bringing together national (Survie, Marchedes solidarités, Attac) and local organizations (UCL Montpellier, but alsoCarmagnole and La Libre Pensée) and individuals, the movement organized a seriesof events before and during the summit to give another discourse on the realityof France-Africa relations: a discourse that speaks of neocolonialism,extractivism, civilian victims.The convergence of these different movements was not obvious, and sometimes asource of tension: a committee upholding the demand for the cancellation of theAfrica-France summits has notably stood out from a committee for acounter-summit. The two collectives meeting however, beyond the nuances, on themajor part of the political background, the mobilization against the summit didnot suffer from the internal debates.On the contrary, the multiplication of the number of initiatives has enriched themovement of a varied thought on the conditions of a real equality between Franceand the African countries without diluting the mobilization. The basis of commondemands included the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, the cancellation ofodious debts dating from the colonial era, and the regularization of allundocumented migrants.Repression against undocumented migrantsIt was in this context that, on Thursday 8 October, the very day of the launch ofthe summit, took place, the arrest at the Montpellier Sud-de-France station ofeight members of the Parisian Collectives without Papers (CSP) by the NationalPolice. A doubly nauseating roundup, as they came to support a mobilizationdenouncing the inhuman living conditions in which undocumented migrants arevoluntarily maintained by the French state.Following an immediate mobilization in front of the Montpellier police station,six of the arrested were released with an obligation to leave French territory.The two remaining people were transferred to the Administrative Detention Center(Cra), an antechamber for the expulsion. They were not released until after thesummit, and mobilizations demanding the lifting of the inflicted OQTF continuedin Paris during the rest of October.Nothing therefore seems to stop the cynicism of the state apparatus, ready toemploy methods of intimidation of unheard-of violence against this mobilizationwhich tainted the smooth communication of the France-Africa summit. Thedemonstration of Saturday, October 8, the culmination of the counter-summit,therefore took place in a climate of indignation, a new stone having been broughtto the shameful edifice of Françafrique.On the side of the official summit which took place during this time,unsurprisingly, no shocking statement from Emmanuel Macron who was satisfied withinexpensive promises on the return of old works of art and maintaining his courseon the reform of the CFA franc, confiscated from West African institutions.If the mobilization in Montpellier has struggled to massify this year, fororganizational reasons and state repression against undocumented participants,this summit was however an opportunity to prove something else. These greatmasses in Françafrique are creating less and less illusion, both among the Frenchpopulation and in African countries, where many voices have been raised againstthis summit [2]. The 2021 edition, like the following ones, are opportunities tocollectively analyze Franco-African relations, and to forge links between thefronts of struggle: economic and political self-determination of populations,expulsion of multinationals which dry up natural resources and corrupt publicauthorities, rights of exiled populations.Théo (UCL Montpellier)To validate[1]Boubacar Boris Diop, "Montpellier, Françafrique à bout de souffle", SenePlus.com.[2]See among others the publications of the Collective for African Renewal (CORA).https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Sommet-Afrique-France-un-coup-de-vernis-sur-la-Francafrique_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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