What was claimed
French President Emmanuel Macron said: “If we leave African countries to manage on their own, now is not the time. Africa remains the least developed continent, and history shows we have a role to play in supporting its growth. A complete withdrawal could halt progress."
Our verdict
There’s no evidence that President Macron ever made these comments, and the French Embassy in the UK has told us the quote is “completely false”.
There is no evidence that French president Emmanuel Macron said that it was “not the time” for France to leave Africa, as has been claimed in a viral Facebook post.
The post, which has been shared more than 1,400 times and has 10,000 comments, says: “Emmanuel Macron makes a bold statement on Africa’s future. The French President has vowed that France will not abandon its former African colonies.
“MACRON: ‘If we leave African countries to manage on their own, now is not the time. Africa remains the least developed continent, and history shows we have a role to play in supporting its growth. A complete withdrawal could halt progress. There is still much work for us to do in Africa, and we believe they are not fully ready to thrive without our involvement.’”.
However, Full Fact can find no evidence that President Macron actually made these comments.
A spokesperson for the French Embassy in the UK told us the quote “is completely false”. And our fact checking colleagues at Africa Check have also confirmed with the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs that the quote is fake.
Searches for the quote do not produce any video clips of President Macron saying this, and it doesn’t appear to have been reported by any major news outlets or wires. We found one mention in what appears to be an online outlet in Zimbabwe but we haven’t been able to verify that report or reach the paper for comment.
This would be unusual for a genuine quote, given that President Macron’s previous comments about Africa and France’s role on the continent have received widespread media coverage.
These include comments he made in January this year which were widely criticised by African leaders, in which he said that some of the continents’ states “forgot” to thank France for its role in helping fight militant jihadist insurgencies.
Contrary to the claims in the post, France has been withdrawing troops from African nations, including Burkina Faso, Niger, the Central African Republic, Mali, Chad and the Ivory Coast and is expected to withdraw its soldiers from Senegal by late 2025.
The posts also includes a photo of the French president speaking at a podium, which says “Conseil européen extraordinaire” and also includes the word “Bruxelles”.
But a reverse image search shows the picture was taken for the news organisation Bloomberg, published on Getty Images, with a caption stating it was taken at a news conference on 6 March this year following a special European Council meeting in Brussels on rebuilding Europe’s military infrastructure. That summit also discussed supporting Ukraine and establishing security guarantees.
Before sharing claims like this that you see circulating on social media, first consider whether they come from a trustworthy and verifiable source. We have previously fact checked a number of other false quotes attributed to politicians, including US President Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the French Embassy in the UK has denied he ever made them and we could find no mainstream coverage of them.
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