MEDI1TV Afrique : MEDays 2024 : Entretien avec Pierre Lellouche, ex-ministre français de l’Europe - 02/12/2024
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, hello, I am delighted to see you again for a new interview on Mediain TV,
00:14Mediain TV which takes its headquarters here in Tangier at the Palace of Arts and Culture
00:20on the occasion of the 16th edition of the International Med Days Forum. A 16th edition
00:26which has chosen this year as a theme sovereignty and resilience towards a new
00:33global balance. 250 high-level personalities, heads of state, heads of government,
00:41political decision-makers, international leaders, have come to reflect and inflect
00:48perhaps also public opinion on major strategic, political, economic issues.
00:53We are talking about the fragmentation of the world order today, especially of a
00:58global geopolitical landscape that has become more complex. Africa is also at the heart of this
01:05reflection, we will talk about it, but not only. I have the pleasure of receiving in
01:11this interview one of the personalities who participate in these debates, Mr. Pierre Lelouch,
01:16several times former deputy, former minister of Europe, also in charge of Afghanistan,
01:21the specialist of international affairs in France, Mr. Pierre Lelouch, hello.
01:26– Hello, Madam.
01:29– Two years ago, we met, you and I met in the same place to talk about Ukraine.
01:35Two years ago, you told me that Vladimir Putin had made a historical mistake
01:40by invading Ukraine. Two years later, you wrote a book called
01:47La guerre d'Ukraine et le basculement du monde, aux éditions Odile Jacob.
01:52Here, in Tangier, we are talking about a new world balance.
01:57You are talking about the shifting of the world, it is an equation that looks like?
02:03– What this war has done is indeed to hasten the world
02:11in decades of war, in fact.
02:15Thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War, we had believed, with a lot of hope
02:20and perhaps a little naivety, that the wars were over, that we were going to go through
02:24a kind of happy globalization, that everyone was going to benefit from trade,
02:29from development. In fact, we would have an international community made up of people,
02:35of consumers, who all lived a little in the same way, so interchangeable.
02:41We realize that identities have never been so strong.
02:45Globalization has aroused an identity reaction in many places in the world,
02:50including in Africa, in the Arab world, of course, but in Europe too.
02:55And so we are today, on the eve of, we are in an era where the use of violence
03:00is decomplexed, a conflict accumulation a little everywhere on the planet,
03:05and a real fragmentation. And the themes that have been retained are good.
03:10Sovereignty, because each nation must take control, it is clear,
03:14and that no one else will do it in place of Morocco or France, if we do not take care of it.
03:18– Sovereignty and resilience.
03:19– And resilience, because we will have to resist the shock of this post-war.
03:24So this war, it was initially a totally local affair,
03:27it was to know who the Crimea belonged to,
03:31or whether a federal law had to be made on the eastern part of Ukraine,
03:36what the Russians call Novorossiya, the new Russia, the lands of Donbass.
03:40It has become today an absolutely globalized war.
03:44From April 2022, NATO entered into a war by procuration,
03:50not declared with Russia, which led to a whole series of shocks behind.
03:56First, the alliance between Russia and China, which is a very bad idea for the West.
04:01Then the arrival of two formidable allies, which are Iran and North Korea,
04:07what I call the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
04:09These four will not give us a gift.
04:12A shift also in terms of values.
04:15Many countries in the global south have not understood this war between whites in Europe.
04:21And while we in Europe were convinced that it was for the good,
04:25for international law, for the values of freedom, etc.
04:29In the global south, everyone considers that this war is not their war.
04:34And so we insist on this shift, both in terms of values and in terms of strategic consequences,
04:39because this war has metastasized elsewhere,
04:42especially in the Middle East, in Africa,
04:45where France and the United States were literally expelled by the regimes of the Sahel.
04:50There were many, many consequences, including in Asia.
04:52But we don't have time, I'm not going to tell you my book.
04:54Those who are interested will look, but there is a real strategic shift.
04:59...but also on Africa, there was a domino effect, also on Africa.
05:07What result, what impact, two years later, even more,
05:14did this war have on Africa?
05:18You were talking earlier about identity.
05:21The MEDEIS forum chose the term sovereignty.
05:24Can we think about this emergence
05:28and the resilience that must be had to go towards this sovereignty in Africa
05:33without necessarily remaining tense on one's identity
05:37and cultivating division on the continent?
05:41Well, for now, what needs to be seen is that Africa,
05:47fortunately, is not directly concerned by the war in Europe.
05:53There are no immediate military consequences, but still,
05:58we can see that it remains an area where appetites are awakened,
06:06especially those of Russia, which, in the competition it leads against the West,
06:13what it calls the collective West, that is, the Americans, us, the others,
06:18we take the opportunity to try to penetrate,
06:22put our hands on mining resources,
06:25and these are the Russian paramilitary forces that we see in the Sahel,
06:31especially in Central Africa,
06:34which led these putschist governments to expel the Americans, the French in particular,
06:43which serves, at the same time, the return of the hardest Islamists,
06:49that is, Daesh and the Islamic State, and Al-Qaeda as well.
06:54And so we see a re-implantation of these forces in the south of Algeria,
07:01in the entire Sahel area, which is a real problem,
07:05which can affect the whole of the Maghreb as well.
07:09So there were indirect consequences of all this.
07:11There were, of course, Islamists, terrorist groups before,
07:17but now they have a highway since no one fights them anymore,
07:23and that the local governments are very weak in fact.
07:25So there is a very large zone of fragility.
07:29Then there is the arrival of new players economically, especially the Turks.
07:33Everyone is attracted by this continent,
07:35which will be the first continent on a demographic level during this century.
07:40At the end of the century, few people know,
07:43but 40% of the world population will be African.
07:48All this because elsewhere it declines, including in China, very strongly, in Europe,
07:52while the demographic explosion continues in Africa, especially in North Africa.
07:58And so it will require Africans an urgency to get back on their feet,
08:05to find the development paths that this time, I hope, will succeed,
08:09including because new technologies will allow Africans to skip several stages.
08:16The introduction of artificial intelligence,
08:20everything related to new energies,
08:23it should allow, it will allow Africans to skip several stages in development,
08:30and potentially to assert themselves, which would be good news for the world,
08:34because if it fails, there will be considerable human flows,
08:40migratory movements within Europe,
08:43within Africa first, and in Europe, which will be considerable.
08:48We will talk, if you don't mind, about Morocco and France,
08:52while staying in Africa, during his last visit,
08:56during his state visit to Morocco,
08:59French President Emmanuel Macron, in front of the Moroccan parliament,
09:04spoke precisely about this Africa,
09:07and the way in which Morocco has evolved in Africa.
09:13He clearly said that France was looking, and was inspired with humility,
09:19of the African policy of the Kingdom on the continent.
09:24I would like to hear you on this point.
09:27If you want, we, anyway, by force of things, in the ambient chaos,
09:33France and the other Westerners, the Europeans too,
09:36must imperatively rethink our way of working with Africans.
09:42This is what we used to call cooperation.
09:44It's a word I hate, because it means that there is the North and then there is the South,
09:49and that the truth comes from the North to the South.
09:51There are things that the North brings, of course,
09:53especially technological progress and others,
09:55but then it's up to the South to take control.
09:57So it's not a verticality, it's more of an equal, horizontal relationship.
10:03And we have never been able to find, since the independences, the right solution.
10:08On the contrary, we have been content to manage the comfort of a government
10:16that is often very insufficient in terms of governance,
10:19when it is not completely kleptocratic.
10:25Frankly, I have worked on these issues,
10:27and I am not very proud of the cooperation report of the Europeans and of France.
10:31I think we have missed a lot of things,
10:33which has contributed to the general instability we are experiencing today.
10:39So yes, there is a need to reinvent all this.
10:41And I think Morocco is doing very well,
10:45because quietly, the Moroccans have succeeded
10:52by exporting their financial aid, the banking system, their companies,
11:00the education of people through university cooperation and others.
11:03There is a Moroccan footprint now,
11:05which is developing rather well and which is giving good results.
11:09And as it happens between Africans, there may be less tension too.
11:14There is no imperialism, imperialism, colonialism and all that, so it helps.
11:19But I find that Morocco,
11:22moreover, it can be seen in this meeting too,
11:23there are many Africans who come to show their country
11:30for investors who are not only Westerners,
11:32but who are many investors of the region, including Moroccans.
11:37So that is rather a good thing.
11:40And we, it is clear that we must try to find,
11:45with the new elites in Africa,
11:48another form of relationship.
11:50We are no longer at the time of De Gaulle and Foucault,
11:53or Mitterrand and Papa Madi, the son of Mitterrand.
11:57It's over, all that.
11:58You have to have, it's not a story of humility either,
12:02I don't like these words, humility.
12:04I think you have to look at things as they are.
12:06There is a lot of talent in Africa,
12:08there is a considerable human mass,
12:10and there is a lot of wealth that is not valued,
12:15or that is plundered.
12:16So we have to stop the plundering.
12:18We have to tell Africans that some new arrivals
12:21may not be the best, among us.
12:23So we have to try to help them, to shield everything that is legal,
12:27especially in the field of mining rights and others,
12:29to try to support them technically.
12:31But I think they now have access to all the advice.
12:36After that, we need governors who do the work,
12:38who first think about the development of these countries.
12:42But there is no reason why Africa can't do it.
12:45I have long been convinced that it is almost a self-inflicted underdevelopment.
12:52Obviously, the others did not help because they took it badly.
12:55The Europeans, for example.
12:57But I looked in detail, for example, at the help of the Cooperation of France.
13:02There is a boy who has worked a lot on this too.
13:05Investments that have been clearly announced,
13:08large investments between France and Morocco.
13:1222 strategic agreements signed,
13:1410 billion euros in contracts,
13:18as part of a strengthened partnership of exceptions.
13:24The Sahara region, the southern provinces, are also concerned.
13:29Two weeks ago, the French ambassador was in Laayoune and Dakhla.
13:33– Yes, I went there. – And you were there too.
13:36– Not with him before. – Yes.
13:38You also know this region of Morocco very well.
13:44What is your view on the development of these southern provinces?
13:48And how France, in your opinion, should accompany the economic development
13:54of these southern provinces to the benefit of the local Moroccan populations?
13:58– First of all, I think that the normalization of this affair
14:02between France and Morocco had only been too late, honestly.
14:08A lot of hesitation, a lot of pressure on all sides.
14:14And I think that the decision that was taken was wise,
14:18but in my opinion, it could have been taken before.
14:21Very, very clear.
14:24All the attempts to appease France in the direction of Algeria,
14:29and to purify a certain number of things, do not work.
14:32And they will never work.
14:34Quite simply because, I will be very clear,
14:37the coterie that is in power in Algeria,
14:39lives on the remorse of the anti-French sentiment.
14:42It's their bread and butter, as the Americans say, they live on that.
14:47So there is no chance that it will improve,
14:50until the Algerians themselves change their regime.
14:53Because the new generations that arrive in Algeria
14:55have never experienced the war of independence,
14:58do not have the memory of the criminalization of France,
15:03which serves as a permanent alibi for a regime that does not know how to develop its country,
15:09but that knows how to maintain power, that's for sure.
15:11So I think the choice that has been made is a wise choice,
15:15to rely on a stable state,
15:18which is developing well, with flaws and qualities,
15:22but it is a stable pole in the zone,
15:24which does rather good work in Africa.
15:26So for me, there is no fault in this matter.
15:30After, the economic development in Morocco,
15:33the co-development, we started it before Mr. Macron,
15:35I remember, I came here when I was Minister of Sarkozy,
15:38we did a lot of things, especially in this region of Tangier that you know well,
15:42a lot, a lot of investment,
15:44the things we did between French and Moroccans in this area.
15:47So what can we do in the south?
15:49Well, in the south, there are a lot of things,
15:51in terms of tourism, in Dakhla, there are extraordinary things to do,
15:55and then there is this whole fishing industry,
15:57which must be done in an intelligent way to preserve the resource,
16:01and at the same time, develop local capacities.
16:04It is a very important subject, food autonomy for Morocco,
16:10but also exports to Europe.
16:13Water management as well?
16:14Water management, of course.
16:16Emmanuel Macron was talking about water highways, precisely.
16:19Well, first, we would have to go...
16:22Well, France has a lot of technology to contribute in these areas,
16:28and in addition, the problems you have in Morocco in terms of water and drought,
16:32we will have them in Europe, in France,
16:34the Spaniards already have them, but in France we will have them too.
16:37And we have...
16:39Curiously, the experiences that will take place in Africa
16:43will be a precursor to what will happen to us in Europe.
16:47So the mix of European technology,
16:50of adaptation here in Morocco and in Africa,
16:53solutions that Africans will find,
16:55will help Europe tomorrow.
16:57You see, it will be played on both sides,
17:02in a relationship that can be win-win.
17:06We have companies in France that know how to manage water,
17:09who are the best in the world,
17:11but finally, the experience that will be acquired in Morocco
17:16will help many African countries and also Europe tomorrow.
17:20So yes, this is a real subject.
17:23Thank you, Pierre Lelouche, for being our guest.
17:28And thank you, it's the end of this interview.