Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The RN leader, accompanied by one of her close collaborators Louis Aliot, was received by Mahamat Déby, the Chadian president who has been in power for more than three years thanks to a coup d’état openly supported by Emmanuel Macron. True, the RN leader’s interest in Africa is limitted. After all, she and her party present Africa as the source and cause of the much-reviled “migratory submersion” of the true French. Still, her effort to make friends there seems counter-intuitive.

The RN’s Tour Operator

Marine Le Pen has already been received by Idriss Déby in 2018 and by the Senegalese president Macky Sall in 2023. That visit was preceded by an opinion piece in the newspaper l’Opinion in which she made the incongruous proposal that Senegal should be a member of the UN Security Council on behalf of Africa.

Myriam Lamzoudi, a local elected official from Oise and a defector from the Les Républicains party, spares no effort in forging links between the RN and representatives of African countries as well as the diaspora. She scours colloquiums and seminars to distribute business cards and propose meetings. On her Facebook account, between two posts about her cat, she does not hesitate to praise Nelson Mandela and protest against racist insults that certain French journalists might suffer due to their surnames that would strongly displease [far right prrsidential candidate] Éric Zemmour.

But beyond this small-scale effort, most of Marine Le Pen’s few relationships in Africa are the result of the mediation of Philippe Bohn, former CEO of Air Senegal, who has a well-filled address book for the continent. He uses his good relationships within the Christian Democratic International to promote RN politics to African audiences.

The Identitarian “Each to Their Own”

During her visits to Africa, Marine Le Pen avoids certain subjects, such as the positive effects of colonisation, her opposition to any repentance concerning France’s colonial policy, or restrictions on aid and visas. She is also very discreet about the declarations of her father and mentor Jean-Marie Le Pen, who proclaimed in 1986: “I believe in the inequality of races”.

The RN attempts to find points of convergence with selected African leaders by putting forward an ethno-nationalist vision of the nation based solely on the right of blood. Respect for differences but with each in their own country, as well as the defence of the values of morality, family, and tradition. A discourse close to that held by pro-Putin Russians, as they strive to acquire minimal acceptability of their military presence in several African countries.

Note that the African potentates who have agreed to receive first the father then the daughter Le Pen show total indifference to the fate of their compatriots who face racist hatred promoted in France by their interlocutor, the same indifference that they show to the residents of their own countries.

Paul Martial