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Gibson Nyikadzino Correspondent
What is obtaining in France is one way to describe a government that has lost legitimacy and now resorts to undemocratic ways to remain relevant.
However, Africa’s silence to these developments does not only mean the continent lives to its principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states, but also that there appears to be a lack of creative framing, knowledge and thought leadership in global affairs by the continent’s media.
What happened in France? A police officer shot and killed a French-Algerian teenager.
At first, the officer was not antagonistic, but later became hostile when he heard the teenager speaking to a friend in Arabic, a principal language spoken in Arab countries.
This is xenophobia in France!
President Emmanuel Macron has refused to condemn the acts of “police violence and brutality against unarmed and innocent civilians” and preferring to describe the shooting as “an act by some officer”.
President Macron’s words are self-fulfilling.
According to an Amnesty International Report for 2022/23 titled The State of the World’s Human Rights, there are indications that France is becoming a totalitarian state that has departed from the motto of the French Revolution that upheld “liberty, equality, fraternity”.
Today the elements of this motto are no longer part of the fabric of France. Protests are being brutally suppressed, and their leaders are being victimised and detained by police without explanation, and some are denied legal representation.
In 2021, a French public prosecutor claimed that the use of force by the police on a young man who lost his hand from the impact of kinetic projectiles as well as stun and tear gas grenades used in a dangerous manner was appropriate.
When an African country is faced with this situation, there is a lot of condemnation spread over this without concern about the country’s security and stability.
Macron: A Rothschild project
When President Macron won his first term in 2017, there was a euphoria that cut across the excitable world and even in Africa, many in the opposition saw him as a beacon, however, his lack of political experience and maturity exposed who is handling him.
Little has been said that he worked for the Rothschild’s investment and banking firm responsible for company integration as a specialist before being appointed as minister of Economics, Industry and Digital Affairs in August of 2014.
His placement in government was scripted to this outcome.
With more avalanches of evidence, it is undeniable he is a project of the international and finance banking lobby who have been determined to displace the ideas and values of the Socialist Party and the Republican Party, key ideological parties in the history of France.
The lobby favoured Macron’s En Marche (Forward) a popular movement that he characterised as a “democratic revolution” against a sclerotic political system, and to become a third-way paradigm.
That Macron won the election at first attempt with a political movement that was only a year old was unique in the history of France and also, it was not possible ideologically for people from the Socialist and Republican parties to follow Macron.
France is known for its social dimension in its political system that it mainly dominated by the power of trade unions and also known as the country of proletarian class with economic power.
Under the Macron administration, trade unions are practically absent comparative to the last decade, except for the trade union representing the police which is rather insulting the people.
Rising Western authoritarianism
From March, the French government started the process to ban the Earth Uprisings, an umbrella organisation of climate activist groups that later turned to violent protests which were controlled by violent police brutality. It is also President Macron who raised the pension age by a unilateral action last year without following parliamentary processes and procedure.
The Amnesty International report notes that between 2022 and 2023, racial and religious discrimination persisted in France, especially targeting Muslim individuals and associations and also that during the same period there was an excessive use of force by police against citizens without accountability.
The closure of political and democratic space in France, and also the silencing of media practitioners is becoming visible by the day, as in France, there is no longer the voice of the alternative to counter opposition to public opinion.
Now the government has announced that it is closing internet services to deal with protests and protestors.
Imagine if the detention that Julian Assange is going through was on one journalist in Africa, would the western world have remained silent?
For speaking out, the French media has not been spared. The dissolution of independent media outlet Nantes Révoltée in France was unilaterally done without any democratic proceedings being initiated.
At the request of France, the European Union has agreed it will soon approve a new law that would allow governments to spy on journalists in the name of national security by using intrusive surveillance software on reporters. European press freedom advocates are warning that the demand by France could “open the door to all sorts of abuses”.
These are but authoritarian tendencies emerging in France and Europe that are being unnoticed by the entire world, as the idea to effect such authoritarianism is emanating from the view that France and European countries are protecting their interests without consideration of the people “liberty, equality, fraternity”.
When events like these begin to happen, it signals a political reality that the end of one civilisation is the beginning of another, that is history, and it cannot be stopped.
No more Western lectures!
From looking at the events in France, one can attribute the lack of political maturity in the present political establishment to balance the interest of the state and that of the general citizens. It is in these circumstances that when an opportunity is presented for one to choose between a young leader and an experienced one, the latter becomes the alternative.
Those who were excited about Macron’s youthful presidency and his “democratic revolution” are now silent!
Macron is not there to serve the interests of the people, but the banking and finance lobby groups.
That is how democratic he has become, by handing over the country to oligarchs.
President Mnangagwa recently reiterated Zimbabwe’s position that no country should lecture us on the tenets of democracy because Zimbabweans are able to shape the trajectory of their democracy. Democracy is not a violent affair; neither is it perfect. How it works for Zimbabwe is unique in its circumstances.
When violent demonstrations erupted in Zimbabwe in 2019 in the name of “democracy”, government moved swiftly to protect national security interests by addressing how to end violence and bring the situation under control. The West spoke against Zimbabwe and accused the Zimbabwean government of being insensitive to the needs of protestors, despite that they were destroying and burning property.
In as much as violence is never a legitimate instrument by activists in France, even so in Zimbabwe it has no place because what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
When Zimbabwe moves in to protect its national interests from vandals, it has an equal ground to do so as any other country and not be conferred with labels that Western political leaders themselves do not want.
Zimbabweans, remember we are one. This is homeland!
Online Reporter