French President Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to the African country of Benin, called Russia “one of the last imperial colonial states.”
AFP writes about this.
“Russia has launched an offensive against Ukraine. This is a territorial war, the likes of which we thought had disappeared from European soil,” Macron said during the second leg of a trip to Africa to reset France's relations with the continent, where many countries are former French colonies.
“I speak from a continent that suffered from colonial imperialism,” he said at a news conference with Benin President Patrice Talon.
“Russia is one of the last imperial colonial states because it decided to invade a neighboring country to protect its interests,” he added.
The French leader is on a tour of three African countries - Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.
In Cameroon on Tuesday, he said the archives of French colonial rule in Cameroon would be fully opened and asked historians to shed light on the “painful moments” of the period.
French colonial authorities brutally repressed armed Cameroonian nationalists even before the country gained independence in 1960. Tens of thousands of supporters of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon party died at the hands of French colonial troops and the first president, Ahmad Ahij, after independence.
France still maintains a significant position in West Africa today, controlling its economy through unequal treaties and mineral extraction. At the same time, its position in recent years has begun to be actively squeezed by China and partly Russia.