France, reeling from its military and political retreat across Africa, is seeking to claw back influence by hosting an emergency conference on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) next month.
The announcement came as DRC President Felix Tshisekedi used his address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to call for recognition of what he described as a “silent genocide” in his country.
“All the signs of planned extermination are present… This is not just a conflict, it is a silent genocide that has been affecting the Congolese people for more than 30 years,” Tshisekedi said.
Violence in the mineral-rich east of the DRC has worsened since 2021 with the resurgence of the M23 rebel group, which the UN accuses neighboring Rwanda of backing. M23 fighters seized the key cities of Goma and Bukavu earlier this year, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris would host the conference in October, billing it as a humanitarian response. But it comes after France has been expelled or sidelined across much of its former African sphere of influence—most notably in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—where military coups and anti-French sentiment have allowed Russia to step in.
The conference could give France a chance to reassert itself diplomatically in a region where its influence has visibly ebbed.
