At a G20 summit press conference in Hamburg on July 8, French President Emmanuel Macron answered a call for an African “Marshall Plan” from a Cote d’Ivoire journalist. Macron’s stern, clear-eyed rebuff to was startling, as he dismissed the idea with some disdain: “We among the West have been discussing such Marshall plans for Africa for many years and have in fact given many such plans already. So if it were so simple, it would have been fixed already.”
He went on: “The challenge of Africa, is totally different, much deeper, it is civilization today.” He cited failed states trafficking in drugs, weapons, humans, and cultural property, Islamic terrorism, and said for a kicker: “when countries have still today 7 to 8 children per woman, you can decide to spend billions of euros, you stabilize nothing.”
Macron touched the third rail. He drew immediate, international censure for his antiquated views, insulting Africa, and white European supremacism. Macron is France’s new roi soleil. How could this happen—the Atlantic beau monde asked itself in horror—this horrible, unthinkable gaffe? Finally, in Foreign Policy Remi Adekoya posed the question, “Is It Racist to Say Africa Has ‘Civilizational’ Problems?”
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