France Knows — and Its Silence Is the Crime

Mélenchon’s statement may fade in the French press cycle, but it will not fade in African memory. For once, a French leader has acknowledged the truth: France’s shadow still darkens Cameroon’s future.

By Ali Dan Ismael editor in chief and senior political commentator

The Courage of One Voice

When Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared that “France has a share of responsibility for what is happening in Cameroon,” he broke a long silence that most French politicians have preferred to maintain. It was not simply a comment about foreign policy — it was a confession, a moral reckoning.

For those of us who have studied the long arc of Franco-Cameroonian relations, Mélenchon’s statement is less revelation than confirmation. France has always known. It has known who it armed, who it trained, and who it blessed. It has watched a 92-year-old ruler extend his hand for an eighth term and said nothing, because silence has always served its interests.

The Eighth Term and the Old Pact

Paul Biya’s eighth mandate is not a triumph of democracy; it is the relic of Françafrique — the same unholy alliance that married Cameroonian subservience to French strategic convenience. When Emmanuel Macron visited Yaoundé and fraternized with Franck Biya, he was not paying diplomatic courtesy; he was confirming continuity. France has never stopped choosing Cameroon’s leaders. It only changes the packaging.

This continuity of interference is precisely what Mélenchon calls out — the mentality that treats Cameroon as a “colonial port” where Paris still decides destinies. It is an indictment not only of France’s hypocrisy but also of a generation of African leaders who confuse dependency with partnership.

The Hidden Hand Behind the Genocide

France knows that the so-called “Anglophone crisis” is not a linguistic quarrel but a legal and historical fault line — the unfinished decolonization of the former British Southern Cameroons. Every major atrocity in Ambazonia has been committed with weapons, training, or intelligence derived from France’s security apparatus. Each burned village is a reminder that complicity is not only moral but material. Paris has always pretended neutrality, but neutrality in the face of injustice is never innocence — it is participation by omission.

France’s Own Reckoning

Mélenchon’s words should force the French conscience to confront itself. How can a nation that celebrates “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” continue to underwrite oppression abroad? France cannot reconcile its republican ideals with its imperial reflexes. The gap between Paris’s values and Yaoundé’s realities has now become a moral scandal — and history will write it as such.

Lessons for the Post-Biya Era

For the next generation of leaders in La République du Cameroun, this moment offers a mirror. They must understand that no country can outsource its sovereignty and still claim to be independent. Every ruler who borrows legitimacy from France ends up bankrupt before his own people.

Cameroon must unlearn the habits of dependency — economic, military, and psychological. It must stop confusing friendship with servitude and stop seeking validation from Paris to act in the interests of its citizens.

If there is to be a rebirth after Biya, it will come not from the embassies but from the people — from those who have nothing to gain from France and nothing left to lose from its betrayal.

The Final Word

Mélenchon’s statement may fade in the French press cycle, but it will not fade in African memory. For once, a French leader has acknowledged the truth: France’s shadow still darkens Cameroon’s future.

Whether Paris listens or not, Africa has heard. And when the next generation of Cameroonians rewrites their history, they will remember who spoke the truth — and who remained silent.

Ali Dan Ismael
Senior Political Commentator, The Independentist