The hypocrisy of President Macron, why is Ghana tolerating him?

There is a particular kind of audacity, the kind that smiles at your face while picking your pocket. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, has mastered this art. And on June 17, 2026, he will walk onto Ghanaian soil to speak at our Reparatory Justice Summit. On June 17, Ghana’s Black Stars play their first World Cup match. While the nation’s eyes should be fixed on the pitch, we are instead expected to roll out the carpet for a man who, just weeks earlier, refused to stand on the right side of history.

Let us not forget what happened on March 25, 2026 at the United Nations General Assembly.

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, a key architect of the resolution, stood before the world and declared: “Today, we come together in solemn solidarity to affirm truth and pursue a route to healing and reparative justice.” It was a historic moment. The resolution, declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations as a concrete step toward remedying historical wrongs, passed with 123 votes in favour. Africa spoke. The world heard. But France? France abstained.

Not a yes. Not even a polite disagreement. An abstention, that most cowardly of political gestures. France’s foreign minister explained the abstention by saying France “refused to create a hierarchy among crimes against humanity or to make a competition of the suffering.” A clever line. But let us translate it plainly: France will acknowledge that slavery was wrong, in the abstract, in museums, in carefully worded laws, but will not commit to any concrete accountability for the wealth extracted from African bodies over centuries. All 27 members of the European Union abstained, a move the European Network Against Racism described as “not neutral” calling it a continued reluctance to confront Europe’s historical and ongoing role in structural racism.

And yet, here comes Macron to Accra. To our summit. On reparations.

The pattern of a man running out of friends

This visit does not exist in isolation. It is part of a desperate, calculated campaign. To understand Macron’s current Africa tour, you must understand what he has lost.

By 2023, French troops had been expelled from Mali and Burkina Faso. In Niger, following the coup in July 2023, the military government demanded the withdrawal of French forces and severed security ties with Paris. These were not accidents. These were African nations, exhausted and fed up, doing what their sovereignty demanded. And how did Macron respond? In early January 2025, he sparked outrage across West Africa after insinuating that countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger had failed to show gratitude for France’s military involvement, “some have forgotten to say thank you,” he said. Gratitude. For occupation. For decades, the extraction was dressed as a partnership.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have since formed the Alliance of Sahel States and turned to Russian mercenaries for support. Even the more friendly governments of Ivory Coast, Chad, and Senegal have requested the exit of French troops. France’s grip on the continent, the military bases, the proxy governments, the CFA franc that has kept 14 African nations’ monetary reserves sitting in the French Treasury, is crumbling. Their governments collectively expelled 4,300 French troops.

So what does Macron do? He pivots. He smiles wider. He dances.

The image management campaign

The Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi in May 2026 was France’s first Africa summit hosted in an English-speaking country, a deliberate pivot to parts of the continent where France’s neocolonial reputation is less entrenched. At the summit, Macron jogged through the streets of Nairobi with Kenya’s two-time Olympic marathon champion. He danced to the global hit “Jerusalema” at a cultural reception. He opened his keynote address with a few words in Swahili.

The performance was elaborate. But it cracked quickly. Macron had declared himself a “Pan-Africanist” at a press conference, a statement that went viral with ridicule. Then, when the audience at a youth session grew noisy, Macron stormed the stage to rebuke attendees for what he called a “total lack of respect,” accusing them of disrupting speakers. A Zimbabwean former MP put it best on X: “They are not your kids. Don’t be condescending. Imagine if a guest of the state did the same in your country?”

A man who calls himself a Pan-Africanist but scolds African audiences like a headmaster. A man who pledges €23 billion in investment across Africa with one hand, while abstaining from accountability with the other.

The Benin-Gabon-Kenya-Ghana roadmap

Let us trace the geography of Macron’s charm offensive. Benin was an early stop; France has been courting the country with cultural cooperation agreements and development funding. Gabon, despite its own political turbulence, has remained on Paris’ radar as an energy-rich former colony. Then, Kenya Anglophone influential, a statement that France is “open to all of Africa now.” French multinational companies such as TotalEnergies, Société Générale, and Bolloré already maintain strong commercial operations in Ghana. Now Accra.

Connect the dots. This is not goodwill tourism. This is France rebuilding supply lines, diplomatic, commercial, and military, after losing its traditional strongholds in the Sahel. With French influence being expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, Paris is desperately searching for a new strategic foothold in Africa. Ghana, stable, democratic, resource-rich in gold, cocoa, and oil, and freshly assertive on the world stage, is exactly the kind of partner France needs right now. Not to uplift, but to replace what was lost.

The reparations ploy

Now here is where the hypocrisy reaches its peak. After abstaining at the UN in March, Macron has accepted an invitation to address Ghana’s Next Steps High-Level Conference on Reparatory Justice, scheduled for June 17–19, 2026, in Accra. And Ghana has confirmed that an expanded French delegation has accepted the invitation to participate at a high level, signalling that Paris is prepared to go beyond rhetoric.

But is it? At bilateral talks in October 2025, Macron pledged support for the reparations initiative, while cautioning that the discussion should acknowledge the involvement of various actors beyond Western powers. Translation: Yes, slavery was bad, but don’t just look at us. The same deflection, in a different suit.

France’s parliament recently backed the repeal of colonial-era slavery edicts, but dodged any reparations commitment. Words without money. Gestures without restitution. That is Macron’s offering. And Ghana is rolling out the red carpet for it.

Why is Ghana tolerating this?

This is the question that deserves a direct answer. Ghana’s diplomacy is sophisticated and Mahama’s reparations push is genuinely historic. As AU Champion for Advancing the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations, Mahama has declared that “reparatory justice will not be handed to us, like political independence, it must be asserted, pursued and secured through determination and unity.” We respect that. But there is a difference between strategic engagement and being used as a photo opportunity by a declining imperial power.

France needs Ghana more than Ghana needs France right now. France’s economy is struggling. Its influence in Africa is evaporating. The CFA franc still pegs 14 African countries to the euro, forcing them to keep reserves in the French Treasury, but even that neocolonial instrument is under growing pressure. Macron showing up in Accra talking about reparations, after abstaining on the very resolution Ghana championed, is not a sign of conviction. It is a sign of calculation.

We should ask: what does Ghana get? What are the binding commitments? What is France prepared to pay, return, or genuinely relinquish? A €23 billion investment pledge spread across 30+ African countries is not reparations, it is business. Businesses that will benefit French companies like TotalEnergies and Bolloré operating on our soil.

A final word

Ghana has earned its moment on the global stage. President Mahama’s leadership on reparatory justice has made the world pay attention. But moral leadership means asking hard questions, even of guests at your own summit. Let Macron come. Let him speak. But let Ghana not be dazzled by dancing and Swahili greetings and pledges written in sand.

Consider the contrast. On March 25, 2026, President Mahama stood at the United Nations and declared without flinching: “Reparatory justice will not be handed to us. Like political independence, it must be asserted, pursued and secured through determination and unity.”

Then hear what Macron said, just two months later, on May 21, 2026, at a ceremony in his own palace in Paris:

“We must not make false promises. We must have the honesty to say that we can never fully repair this crime, because it is impossible. You will never one day be able to put a number on it, or find words that would bring this history to a close.”

Read that again. Slowly.

The man coming to our reparations summit already told the world, in his own words, that he will never put a number on what was done to us. That it is “impossible.” No words can close this history. And yet he will fly to Accra, stand at a podium built on the very soil where our ancestors were marched in chains to the sea, and speak about justice. Experts have already raised alarm bells: the symbolic repeal of France’s Code Noir has no concrete impact, since it was last applied in 1848. One analyst called it “a cheap way to clear one’s conscience.”

Mahama says justice must be pursued. Macron says justice is impossible. One man is building a movement. The other is managing a reputation. Ghana, know the difference, and demand better than words.

That Macron quote is the smoking gun. He essentially pre-emptively told Ghana: don’t expect money, don’t expect a number, don’t expect closure. And then accepted an invitation to our reparations summit. The nerve of it lands hardest when placed directly beside Mahama’s declaration; the contrast speaks for itself.