Understanding France's interest in October 12 poll.

Paris was criticised for sending a retired Army General, Thierry Marchand, to Cameroon in 2022, as Ambassador; ostensibly to avoid the country joining the swathe of military coups that swept through former colonies like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger and Gabon. Curiously, these countries often cite French interference in their domestic affairs.

With the frenzy of the October 12, 2025 presidential election at the apex, especially with speculations that the French were opposed to Prof Maurice Kamto's candidature, Ambassador Marchand last May 22, visited the Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, whose ministry "accompanies" Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, in the electoral process.

A statement issued by the ministry after the audience, pointed out that "discussions focused on Cameroon’s upcoming 2025 elections".

The statement quoted the Ambassador as describing the audience "as timely and essential,” given the political significance of the year.

“2025 is an election year. It is important for me, as France’s Ambassador, to understand the organisation, structure, and timeline of the electoral process,” Marchand had stated. 

MINAT also reported that the meeting equally touched on plans to expand voter registration, both within Cameroon and in the Diaspora, particularly in France.

Ambassador Marchand acknowledged Cameroon government’s willingness to enlarge the electoral base.

“The political legitimacy of a president comes from a massive turnout," Ambassador Marchand said and reaffirmed France’s interest in the democratic process in Cameroon.

According to the MINAT release, he expressed "his desire to maintain open dialogue with national authorities during this crucial electoral period".

The flurry of French activities during this election period has also included the appointment of a career diplomat to Yaounde, Ambassador Sylvain Riquier, to "continue the work of his predecessors, to further dynamise the cooperation between France and Cameroon".

On August 7, 2025, President Emmanuel Macron signed a decree "appointing Sylvain Riquier to the post of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic France, to the Republic of Cameroon". 

He will take office on September 1, 2025, to replace Thierry Marchand. Last July 30, Macron wrote to President Biya conceding French involvement in atrocities in Cameroon leading to independence.

In a letter to his Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya, which Le Monde said was "leaked" as it surfaced only on August 12, 2025, the French President officially acknowledged that France had waged “a war” in Cameroon, against insurgent movements before and after independence in 1960, marked at the time by “repressive violence”.

The report did “clearly clarify that a war had taken place in Cameroon, in the course of which the colonial authorities and the French army exercised repressive violence of multiple natures”.

Using several times the word hitherto absent from official French discourse concerning Cameroon, Emmanuel Macron added that “the war continued beyond 1960, with France’s support for actions led by independent Cameroonian authorities”.

“It comes to me today to assume France’s role and responsibility in these events,” added Emmanuel Macron in the letter dated July 30, 2025.

The million-dollar question is why Macron wrote only on the eve of an important election when the conclusions of a report by historians had been submitted to him since January 2025?

The opposition MANIDEM party, which invested Kamto for the October 12 presidential election, but was rejected, in a reaction to the letter, said the acknowledgement was "an attempt to continue neocolonialism and does not address the central issue of Cameroon's governance being tied to a system harmful to the majority".

But that is not the interest of France in a tense political situation like in Cameroon. Statistics on the Cameroonian economy in 2024, indicate that France remains a partner of choice for Cameroon. 

During the current year, Emmanuel Macron’s country is ranked as Cameroon’s third largest customer in the European Union, with 13.9 % of exports (about FCFA 1,340 billion).

Economists hold that Cameroon suffers a structural account deficit with France, due to the nature of exports that  don't add significant value to the economy.

Like Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon remains one of the last dinosaurs of France's influence in Francophone Africa. Cameroon being the Big Brother of the CEMAC zone, France also uses it to wield geopolitical influence in the region.

Apart from the FCFA string and based on experience from other ex-colonies with emerging anti-France sentiments, Paris will prefer, as the maxim says, "the devil it knows than an unknown angel," in the 2025 presidential election, which is said to explain the plethora of French involvement in Cameroon in the heat of the October 12 poll. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3539 of Wednesday August 20, 2025