French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo next month with some observers expressing reservation at the timing as the country prepares for a potentially explosive election.
The DRC is one of the four countries President Macron will visit. He will also visit Gabon where an election is also taking place.
According to his programme released recently, President Macron will visit Angola and Congo Brazzaville on his Africa tour.
He will begin the tour with a stop in Libreville on March 1 and 2.
The French president will co-host a One Forest Summit which is aimed at the preservation of tropical forests, an event to which several heads of state have been invited.
Beyond this event, the visit to Gabon is seen as strategic after the country, a former French colony, switched and recently joined the Commonwealth.
“This trip to Gabon and the DRC is somewhat making people angry because, for instance, the Gabonese civil society and opposition believe it has come too close to the presidential election to be held in April,” an observer says.
The same suspicion is weighed on the presence Macron in the DRC which will hold presidential elections in December.
President Macron had originally planned to visit Kinshasa and Luanda during his first five-year term, but the trip was aborted due to the Covid crisis.
