Police data shows that 55% of the 157 carjacking arrests this year involved a minor. He once again cast blame on young people for driving the spike in carjackings. To better respond to carjackings, which have surged in recent years, the superintendent said the mayor “found the money for two additional helicopters” - though he pushed for even more to build a fleet on par with other major cities. Murders and shootings are up sharply in the two police districts that cover downtown, but motor vehicle thefts and other thefts are up just as steeply. Moscow has denied responsibility for the food crisis, blaming Western sanctions for slowing its food and fertiliser exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its ports.Ĭameroon, a mineral-rich Central African nation, is a significant food producer for the region and Macron’s delegation will seek investment opportunities in the agricultural sector through a Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission initiative launched in March with the African Union to boost food production.Downtown has presented a particular challenge for the superintendent and the mayor. Many African nations are dependent on Russian grain and energy, but they also buy Ukrainian grain, which has been disrupted by the conflict. “Food, like energy, have become Russian weapons of war … We must help the African continent to produce more for itself,” Macron said. It is totally false,” Macron said during a meeting with the French community in Cameroon. “We are blamed by some who say that European sanctions are the cause of the world food crisis, including in Africa. Macron’s tour of Africa is also meant to help boost agricultural production amid the growing food insecurity linked to the war in Ukraine.Īfrican governments have largely avoided taking sides and refused to join Western condemnation and sanctions.Īt the same time, anti-French sentiment is rising in France’s former West African colonies, where security concerns following a string of coups are stoking frustration and swinging public opinion in favour of Russia. Severe fuel shortages hit the capital Yaounde last week leading to long queues at petrol stations. Macron also described the global food crisis as one of Russia’s “weapons of war” during his visit to Cameroon, dismissing suggestions Western sanctions were to blame.Ĭameroon, like many developing countries, is grappling with sharp increases in prices for oil, fertiliser and foodstuffs.

Food crisis one of Russia’s ‘weapons of war’ In 2021, France returned more than a dozen artefacts looted from Benin by colonial forces in 1892, soothing a source of friction between Paris and its former colony.

He also commissioned a report by Algerian-born French historian Benjamin Stora on the colonial era in the North African country, although he ruled out making an official apology. The first French president born after Algeria’s bitter and protracted independence war ended, Macron called the colonisation of the country “a crime against humanity” and said it was time France “looked our past in the face”. The 44-year-old has made concerted efforts to turn the page on painful episodes in France’s past. France’s President Emmanuel Macron leaves the presidential palace after his meeting with Cameroon’s president in Yaounde The French leader is due to travel to Benin on Wednesday before ending his trip in Guinea-Bissau. Macron’s comments came on the first leg of a trip to three African countries where he hopes to reset France’s relations with the continent, where many nations are former French colonies. The Cameroonian army under the country’s first post-independence leader Ahmadou Ahidjo also killed UPC fighters.įormer President Francois Hollande in 2015 conceded that France’s colonial past in Cameroon brought “tragic” moments and said he was open to opening the archives.Ī group of Cameroonian political parties on Monday called on Macron to recognise the “crimes” France committed during the colonial era. Tens of thousands of supporters of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party, including independence leader Ruben Um Nyobe, were killed by the French army. Macron, speaking in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde on Tuesday, said he wanted historians from both countries to work together on investigating the past and establish “responsibilities”.įrench colonial authorities brutally repressed armed Cameroonian nationalists before the country’s independence in 1960. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has said the archives on French colonial rule in Cameroon would be opened “in full” and asked historians to shed light on the period’s “painful moments”.

Link to the past openin