Macron Visits Republic of Mauritius this Week – In Context of All Dangers
17.11.2025
While France still illegally occupies the Mauritian Island Tromelin, President Macron is paying a visit to Mauritius. The visit comes at a time when France is in political tail-spin and economic doldrums, while its armed forces have been unceremoniously booted out of four or five countries in West Africa, one after the other, and when Trump’s USA is making Europe pay the price for the disastrous NATO war against Russia using Ukraine as a Western proxy. When France has found itself without a foreign policy, it has suddenly remembered its old former, former colony, Mauritius. “What can we do there?” As usual, there are people in the State here, not to mention in the upper classes, that are groveling Francophiles.
And, the Macron visit comes at a time when the Mauritius government alliance is in mortal crisis. Today the MMM MPs will decide whether to follow their leader Bérenger out of Government or not. The people have turned against the Government over pensions and over the selling out of the Palestinians. Production in the country continues to wane and the economy goes on relying on selling off Mauritius’ precious land to oligarchs from abroad just to balance the current account. The UK-USA alliance is still in the protracted process of literally “buying” Diego Garcia from the Mauritian Government. Sovereignty and independence are thus exposed as fragile. There has even been some agitation within the walls of a Rodrigues Conference last month in Mont Lubin. The Republic of Mauritius’ unifying language, Kreol is also being broken up by bureaucrats into different “languages” over variations in pronunciation and vocabulary. And, importantly, there are very powerful Francophile forces still around that believe that the French were better colonizers, more civilized, more refined, than the British.
The history
France was kicked out of all the islands of Mauritius by Britain by the Treaty of Paris 1814, which read at Section VIII “the Isle of France and its Dependencies, especially Rodrigues and Les Séchelles, which several Colonies and possessions His Most Christian Majesty cedes in full right and Sovereignty to His Britannic Majesty”. There is nothing else preserving any “rights” of French customs. However, prior to this, there was a Capitulation Treaty in 1810, which may remain, or have remained, binding and which specified “Que les habitants conserveront leur religion, leurs lois et coutumes. — Accordé”. This flimsy bit of history has been relied upon to preserve the privileged position of the French language, especially in schools, the media and in the administration. And when Mr. Macron, the Little napoleon arrives this week, he will be promoting the French language as a medium in schools. This will attempt to replace English, and halt the development of Kreol. The main demand of those fighting for the mother-tongue is that Mathematics and Science be taught in Kreol. Now, Macron arrives and says it should be in French or what he calls “bi-lingue”, which means Kreol will be at best a junior, fading partner. The answer of the Mauritian Government ought to be: NO! Not on your life! Thank you!”
To jump to the end of British rule, in the 1960’s, there was a lot of PMSD-led agitation against Independence, funded by the sugar oligarchs and supported by sections of the Press and Church. The agitation included an element of coincidental agitation around a “Plan B” to separate Rodrigues from Mauritius in the case of Independence. France was supposed to be behind it all, as it were, lying in wait to grab Rodrigues, and add Rodrigues to its Reunion garrison colony, the Comoros that they sent mercenaries to attempt to steal in whole but only succeeded in part (Mayotte) and that was illegal, Madagascar’s Iles Eparses that is now known to have oil and gas reserves, and of course Tromelin that France has continued to colonize, even decades after Mitterand’s electoral program said Tromelin is Mauritian and France would withdraw. When Macron was last due to visit in April, LALIT drew attention to the French bosses’ association torpedoing a plan to negotiate over “co-gestion” of Tromelin.* Curiously, when Macron did not come, himself, he was represented, horror of horrors, by France’s Minister of Colonies, Ministère de la France d'Outre-mer, not their Foreign Affairs Minister! The bad smell of French colonialism still comes out like this kind of silent “bourde”.
Anyway, nothing came of the “Plan B” around Independence. But the agitation was there. And there has since then been a constant push of Francophonie, waxing and waning, and now coming to a head with a big push for French in education and in broadcasting. The MBC has made French its language – all others being reduced to folkloric value.
What did happen immediately after Independence was that an envoy from France, Michel Debré, arrived and symbolically put the PMSD leader Gaetan Duval’s anti-Independence “hand” literally into Seewoosagur Ramgoolam’s Independence “hand” in public, and thus sealed a Labour-PMSD coalition. France bowed out, as it were, leaving politicians in Mauritius to guard its “place”, alongside the sugar oligarchs, an urban petit-bourgeoisie that is supinely francophile, the press and, to a lesser extent now, the Catholic Church.
But the whole Debré event had so much of an air of “theatre” that it left the distinct aura that just as it had never really existed, the “Plan B” had also never really disappeared altogether. It has instead remained like a recurrent bad smell.
All this to say, France was influential in Mauritian politics, and still considers Mauritius a sort-of “dependence” of some kind, a special little Francophone toy that from time to time, France recalls and attempts to valorize.
Last time a French President visited, it was Francois Mitterand in 1990, and there was a peaceful demonstration at what is now the Trianon Roundabout that was violently suppressed by the Police, who moved in, grabbed pancartes and generally shoved people around. The police also got manhandled. It was a dark moment for democracy.
Now, in 2024-25, while Diego Garcia is being sold off to the UK-USA first by the Jugnauth regime and now by the Ramgoolam-Bérenger-Subron-Duval one, the Republic of Mauritius’ territorial integrity is being ripped apart. This time it is not just by the imperialist colonizers but with the consent of the now-much-hated Mauritian leaders in the dratted alliance voted in 60-0 just one year ago.
While part of the territory of the Republic of Mauritius is being sold off, before the historic sell-out is actually fully completed because of delays on the UK side, while Attorney General and Minister of Justice Gavin Glover, who clearly has no experience in geopolitics, is in London for talks, there has been, coincidentally, a “Summit” in Rodrigues, with speakers from Mauritius Island and Rodrigues Island, as well as from the region (Madagascar, South Africa, Reunion and Seychelles). Some present, in particular two or three from the Island of Mauritius loudly argued in favour of splitting Rodrigues from the Republic of Mauritius. Though the Conference, with the pretentious and inappropriate name of “Summit” was announced beforehand by both Le Mauricien and L’Express in detailed articles, we have seen little written up on the Summit afterwards. There is one article by a speaker at the Conference, Sedley Assonne, in the on-line newspaper he edits Mazavarou. In it, are rather bureaucratic and mystifying comments by the main organizer, Alain Tolbize, of the Rodrigues Government Employees Association. There is no obvious sign of backing from any imperialist power, but how the thing was financed has not been made public, to our knowledge. And France, Australia, the UK and USA will all have “eagle-eyes” on it.
In all this murky moment of history, Emmanuel Macron, who hardly has a “Government”, himself, and who has lost his last little Empire in Africa and is losing his proxy war against Russia, is now due to visit Mauritius to sign various agreements with Mauritius. No doubt, he hopes to pick up something for his fast-disappearing empire. Tying Mauritius to the French language, as opposed to English, ties Mauritius more closely to the exports of this shrinking empire.
All this to say that vigilance is necessary.
The mother tongue struggle in our Republic certainly does not need French introduced as a medium. It would be an appalling domination by the French language that pretends Kreol is an “offshoot” from it that can be drawn back “in” again.
No, Mr. Macron, Kreol is a stand-alone language bearing no resemblance in its grammatical structure to French.
* https://www.lalitmauritius.org/en/newsarticle/3574/vizit-prezidan-lafrans-macron-ndash-kestyon-ki-poze/
