French president Emmanuel Macron arrives in Antananarivo this afternoon (Wednesday 23rd April) for the first bilateral visit to Madagascar since 2005.
But alongside talks on trade, defence, climate change and pollution, disagreement over ownership of Indian Ocean islands is likely to be expressed.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Madagascar today to meet with Malagasy president Andry Nirina Rajoelina, and bring to an end a foreshortened visit to the Indian Ocean.
Macron was in Mayotte on Monday, where he announced a €3.2bn five year ‘rebuilding’ plan to help the island, which is a French department, recover from the devastation of Cyclone Chido late last year.
Chido struck the island on 14th December, and is confirmed to have killed 40 people and injured 5,600. More than 200 people remain ‘missing’ and 90 per cent of all buildings on the island were damaged.
Macron said his plan would also include doubling the number of deportations of ‘illegal immigrants’ to Mayotte (last year 24,500 people were forcibly removed from the island), a plan considered complex and controversial because the vast majority of those immigrants are from Comoros, which claims sovereignty over Mayotte (Mayotte broke away from Comoros in 1975 and declared itself – with French acceptance – ‘part of France’).
Macron was yesterday in Reunion, where he discussed possible responses to Cyclone Garance, which on 28th February struck the island, killing five people and causing €250m of damage.
He also spoke on ways to combat the department’s chikungunya epidemic: the disease, transmitted by the tiger mosquito, has killed six people since January.
He will arrive in Antananarivo this afternoon, and his agenda is, according to the Élysée Palace, to ‘promote our shared interests’.
It is understood that Rajoelina hopes to make headway with talks regarding electricity generation, as just 36 per cent of Malagasy people are connected to the country’s national grid, and the president has set a target of 70 per cent connection by 2023.
But while Macron may welcome an opportunity for French companies to become engaged in Malagasy infrastructure, and hopes to hold conversations on maritime security and protecting the ocean against climate change and plastic pollution, it’s likely he will also face some uncomfortable moments.
Because also this afternoon, Macron – on the first bilateral visit to Madagascar by a French president since Jacques Chirac in 2005 – and Rajoelina are set to ‘raise’ the Scattered Islands, and archipelago of five almost uninhabited islands which are French territory, but which Madagascar claims as its own.
Amongst other reasons, the islands have assumed increasing potential importance globally as their ownership effectively comes with control of the Mozambique Channel, a once-again important route for international trade, and which contains large numbers of edible fish and – it is believed – extensive carbon-based fuel.
It is to be hoped that the latter, whatever happens regarding the islands’ ownership, will remain in the ground.
And on Thursday, territorial disputes will once again surface, as Macron, representing Reunion, will attend the fifth Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) summit in Madagascar, alongside Malagasy, Mauritian, Comorian and Seychellois representatives.
The people of Mayotte demand they should be allowed to join the IOC, in common with their fellow French department inhabitants of Reunion. But Comoros, also claiming ownership of the island, refuses its entry.
The rest of the summit will focus on food security and the sovereignty of the IOC’s current members.
Macron, who was supposed to visit Mauritius after Madagascar, will instead leave directly from the Malagasy state, to prepare for the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday. The ceremony will take place on Saturday 26 April.
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