Who is Achille Mbembe, the architect of the Africa-France summit in Montpellier?

Theorist of post-colonialism, Achille Mbembe, one of the most prominent intellectuals in French-speaking Africa, has accepted the controversial task of preparing the Africa-France summit, which will be held on Friday and to which for the first time no leader of African state was not invited. 

Rarely has a man left his mark on this type of event. Not only did Achille Mbembe submit a report on Tuesday to Emmanuel Macron "for the overhaul of relations between France and the continent ", but he also selected the 12 young people who will debate, Friday, October 8, with the head of state.

For seven months, the Cameroonian intellectual took his pilgrim's staff through 12 countries and launched more than 60 "dialogues" between March and July with civil society actors to prepare for the Africa-France summit in Montpellier.

"I found that it was a necessary, reasonable project, that the mission was a mission of common sense, that Africa should be able to find its interest there, which seems to me to be the case", explains Achille Mbembe in a interview with RFI .

Contemptor of "Françafrique", renowned for his energetic positions, the world-famous author of "Brutalism" and "Critique of Negro Reason" has spent thirty years of a brilliant academic career straddling Africa South and the United States.

"In a very intelligent and undoubtedly strategic way, Emmanuel Macron asked him to go and probe Africans on the directions to follow in order to forge new relations between France and Africa", analyzes journalist Assane Diop, on the antenna of France 24.

A transgressive personality with a magnetic charisma, the Franco-Cameroonian historian is presented as one of the fathers of postcolonial studies. An admirer of Édouard Glissant and Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe has also tackled the critique of neoliberalism and the mechanisms of domination in the contemporary world during his career.

"The choice of Achille Mbembe for this summit is quite right. He is one, if not the greatest contemporary thinker of Africa", affirms the Canadian of Guinean origin Amadou Sadjo Barry, doctor of philosophy and researcher in international relations, joined by France 24. "He knows Africa and, at the same time, tries to think about the world future of the continent."

The ghost of Ruben Um Nyobè

Born in 1957, about sixty kilometers from Yaoundé, Achille Mbembe spent his childhood on his father's farm, in a nationalist and Christian family.

He saw in his flesh the extreme violence of colonization during the Cameroon War of Independence (1955-1962), when one of his uncles was killed alongside the nationalist leader Ruben Um Nyobè, whose remains were dragged , from village to village, by the French armed forces to terrorize the population.

From these tragic events, his vocation as a historian was born. Soon he went to Paris to continue his studies. While official history in Cameroon seeks to eradicate the existence of Ruben Um Nyobè, he fights to bring his memory to life. 

His first book, containing extracts from texts signed by the independentist, earned him a ban from his country for ten years. When his father dies, he cannot attend his funeral. Since then, he has never set foot in Cameroon again.

After writing his thesis, he taught in the United States and then became head of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria) in Dakar, Senegal.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa for twenty years, he now heads the Institute for Research in Economic and Social Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.

By accepting this mission from Emmanuel Macron, Achille Mbembe, who recently denounced a "flagrant absence of historical imagination", of the Head of State, opens, at 64, a new page in his career. But this turning point also aroused the incomprehension, even the hostility of a certain number of African intellectuals.

In a vitriolic column published in Jeune Afrique, the Cameroonian writer Gaston Kelman castigates the intellectual "flattered in his pride as a 'scholar' who masters the science of the master". As for the Senegalese Boubacar Boris Diop, he is ironic about "a bad joke" evoking a "shocking" and "pathetic" summit.

"Taking of war"

Part of African public opinion also sees in the choice of Achille Mbembe a maneuver by the Elysee to restore the image of France on the continent and a "war prize" for Emmanuel Macron.

"The French political class understands that African heads of state are discredited, but that there are still intellectuals who are listened to and that through them, we can address African youth," analyzes the doctor in contemporary history and professor of literature in Philadelphia, Jean-Claude Djereke, joined by France 24. "But I think this is a mistake. Many people have been disappointed by Achille Mbembe, who here gives the impression of coming to the rescue by Macron. "

Four years after the Ouagadougou speech which was to lay the foundations for a new relationship between France and Africa, it is clear that there is a form of disenchantment according to Jean-Claude Djereke. "The basic problems for young Africans are not addressed: these problems are the French military bases, it is the CFA franc, the untimely interference of France in African internal affairs."

The French military intervention in the Sahel to fight against the jihadists and support for the military junta in Chad are the two subjects that have recently fueled the tensions around the French presence in Africa and the accusations of neocolonialism.

“On the political level, there has been no change,” admits Amadou Sadjo Barry, who recalls the context of rivalry with China and Russia for hegemony on the continent. But according to the philosopher, it would be unfair to consider that Emmanuel Macron did not help to redefine the relationship with Africa in a symbolic way with the restitution of works of art or the delivery of the Duclert report on Rwanda .

"On the level (of) historical injustices, Emmanuel Macron has taken strong action. The question is to know how far this symbolic dimension can really lead to a profound change in France's foreign policy", asks Amadou Sadjo Barry.

For his part, Achille Mbembe sweeps away any idea of ​​manipulation or compromise and promises a debate without taboos. In an interview with AFP, the intellectual poses the objective he set for himself during this forum. "If in Montpellier, we manage to move the debate beyond recrimination and denial, then we will have paved the way for a small cultural revolution."