When Prof. P.L.O. Lumumba speaks, his words often carry the cadence of history and the urgency of the present. In a recent lecture, the renowned Kenyan lawyer and pan-African thinker turned his gaze toward France and its embattled president, Emmanuel Macron. His warning was stark: Macron, a symbol of France’s contradictions, may soon find himself at the end of a political road shaped as much by Africa’s defiance as by Europe’s disarray.
At its core, Lumumba’s argument is not just about one man or one presidency. It is about France itself, her colonial past, crumbling influence in Africa, strained alliances in Europe, and the social fractures within its own borders. A nation haunted by empire-drive syndrome.
France’s history is inseparable from the colonial project. From Indochina to West Africa, the French empire once stretched across continents, extracting resources and imposing institutions designed to ensure long-term dependence.
Lumumba points to 1958, when Charles de Gaulle’s referendum offered a carefully staged “choice” to African colonies: accept nominal independence within France’s orbit, or face isolation. Only Ahmed Sékou Touré’s Guinea rejected the offer. An act of defiance met with crippling punishment from Paris.
That referendum, Lumumba argues, revealed France’s intention never to truly let go. Independence became a shell, as neocolonialism flourished through mechanisms like the CFA franc, resource concessions and La Francophonie.
Today, this past casts a long shadow. In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, military juntas have not only overthrown civilian governments but also torn up agreements with Paris, cutting off uranium supplies, expelling French troops and turning toward Russia and China. Existentially for France, the loss is more than economic power.
Presently, Macron appears as a President under siege. When Emmanuel Macron swept into office in 2017, he cast himself as a reformer and visionary. A leader who would modernize France and reinvigorate Europe. Yet, six years later, he faces collapsing approval ratings, mass protests and a resurgent far-right.
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