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This Week:

• 🇧🇫Ouagadougou calls for ejection of French ambassador

• 🌲Bruno Le Maire pushing law on green industry

• ⚠️Fabien Roussel finds himself at risk

• 🌹The PS is turning against the NUPES

🇧🇫Ouagadougou calls for ejection of French ambassador

With the recent fight with Mali having continued to be a problem for the French presence in the Sahel, it seems that things are going in the same direction in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

The site of two coups d’états since January 2022, the ruling military Junta has demanded the replacement of French Ambassador, Luc Hallade, who has been in the capital since 2019.

The reason behind this? A letter was written in December 2022 by Hallade to French nationals living in Koudougou, west of the capital, asking them to relocate to either the capital or to the south-west of the country for their own safety, with 40% of the country being in the hands of Jihadist militia.

However, this only added to the issues that existed. In July 2022, the French ambassador stated that he felt the junta had no results to show in its fight against terrorism, which was causing frustration amongst the citizenry. Remarks that were described as a misreading by the Burkina Faso foreign ministry.

With the ruling Junta now having decided that he has to go, the French state now needs to figure out the best way of maintaining its pressure on the junta is, while preventing a complete rupture that would weaken its geopolitical position.

With France and the EU facing geopolitical competition across Africa from both Russia and China, with the Russian mercenary force Wagner having effectively convinced the Malian government to eject the French military in its favour, this is a tense situation that is far more uncomfortable than many are willing to admit.

However, this is something that we will dive deeper into in a future dispatch…

🌲Bruno Le Maire pushing law on green industry

Some legislative news from France this week, where Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, announced that he would be proposing a text that would ensure “France becomes the first low-carbon nation in Europe”, through a combination of “fiscal, regulatory and legislative provisions”.

The ultimate goal is to "accelerate the [creation] of industrial sites on French territory, to encourage the decarbonization of industry, to better train, qualify" he announced on France Info mid-week, fulfilling the goal set by President Emmanuel Macron has set of ensuring a “green” reindustrialisation that would carry France through a polycrisis comprised of the energy and cost-of-living crises, amongst others.

This also builds into the French government’s geopolitical goals of pushing for a more independent and sovereign France, as well as a more geopolitically powerful, politically sovereign, strategically autonomous European Union, which is less beholden to foreign interests and foreign imports.

⚠️Fabien Roussel finds himself at risk

With the 39th Parti Communist Français (PCF) planned for Early April in Marseille, you would have been forgiven for thinking that National Secretary Fabien Roussel had a stronger position than the incumbents of other parties, having achieved a respectable 2.3% score in the legislative elections and winning 12 seats in the Assemblée National.

However, nobody is spared when congress comes around, especially when a party with the history of the PCF expects much more; even worse, making deals with the devil also doesn’t help your position out very much.

With a slew of problems emerging in recent weeks, from disagreements with the NUPES coalition, a debate on working methods, and a disagreement on whether they need to distance themselves from the Soviet model (yes, this is a thing), this could lead to Roussel’s exit.

While his entourage has said that they are not very worried, highlighting that “Fabien Roussel’s candidacy for the presidential election was accepted by half of the national council, but 82% of members”, they still understand that there’s work to do.

With accusations of ‘parisianism’ starting to rise and the PCF federations from the “red belt” looking to push for coherent action, Roussel and his allies may have their work cut out for them.

🌹The PS is turning against the NUPES

There is more news coming in from the left, with the three candidates for the post of first secretary of the Parti Socialiste (PS) having had a debate on France Info covering all of the important topics: pensions, the economy, Europe, the ecology, and finally, the NUPES alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI).

Current first secretary, Olivier Faure was the only candidate defending the NUPES alliance, having pushed for this initially and signing up for it as an act of survival, and he attacked the calls from Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol for calling for a “union of the left” while calling the NUPES agreement as “grub”.

“I don't know how we can be inside and outside" Faure argued, criticising him of behaving like Emmanuel Macron with formulations such as “at the same time”, a favourite discursive punching bag for the left.

Hélène Geoffroy, the third candidate, made it clear that she would leave both the NUPES coalition as well as the NUPES intergroup in the Assemblée National. Her primary reason?

“Jean-Luc Mélenchon theorizes the noise and the fury, and the contribution of the voices of the Rassemblement National”, Geoffroy argued, putting forward an argument that LFI got too cosy with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN).

Faure was unfortunately stuck in the position of defending Mélenchon and his party more than anything, with a retort that Geoffroy and critics from the PS “can't say that [their] colleagues were able to compromise with the far right”, to which Geoffroy responded that she “[was not accusing] the PS of collusion. But it is La France Insoumise which sets the tone”.

This debate fed into the accusations that Olivier Faure’s political fortunes are intrinsically linked to the success of the NUPES coalition, with his position outside of the party looking far more certain.

Having been a favourite to keep the position as First Secretary by many commentators, Faure’s position is looking far more stable, with his dependence having become clearer to many, and with his competition looking stronger than before.

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