After the regionals, President Diomaye will set foot on French soil for the first time. Thus, the President of the Republic was in France this Wednesday to attend a meeting on Gavi, which is an international alliance which aims to facilitate and accelerate access for African countries to vaccines and immunization, especially of small children. On the side-lines of this meeting, the Senegalese head of state is expected to meet face-to-face with French President Emmanuel Macron. It will be during a lunch planned after this summit which is being held this Thursday in the French capital. This will undoubtedly be an opportunity for the two men to get to know each other better and to address issues concerning the two countries, who maintain secular and above all economic relations. Especially since France is the leading investor and the leading donor of public development aid to Senegal.

But the new authorities, guided by the two heads of the Executive, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko are followers of a sovereigntist and anti-system discourse. Above all, they promised the rebuilding of economic partnerships, which must be, they assure in their speeches, mutually beneficial to all parties. Without doubt, the presence of the French military, which continues to be reduced, will also be at the heart of the presidential discussions. During a speech at Ucad 2, in front of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Sonko assured that “the presence of foreign bases in Senegal is incompatible with national sovereignty”. Without forgetting the reform of the Cfa franc.

You should know that this first trip will be followed by another a few days later, in July, when Diomaye Faye will have to go to Paris for a summit on sport, convened by President Macron, and which will be held as a prelude to the Olympic Games. In November, he is also expected in France to take part in the Francophonie Summit in Villers-Cotterêts, not far from Paris.