At a press conference at the G20 summit in Hamburg on July 8, French President Emmanuel Macron answered a question from a Cote d’Ivoire journalist.
The reporter asked why there was no Marshall Plan for Africa.
Macron’s response included these comments: “The challenge of Africa is completely different, it is much deeper. It is civilizational today. Failing states, complex democratic transitions, the demographic transition.” He later said, “One of the essential challenges of Africa … is that in some countries today seven or eight children [are] born to each woman.”
Many commentators have called these statements racist, problematic, and arrogant. And while many of us agree that the statements were problematic, the problem is not that automatic… Feel free to read about it here.
