President Emmanuel Macron began a three-nation tour of western African states on Monday July 26, 2022, in the first trip to Africa of his new term. Macron kicks off the tour with a visit to Cameroon, before moving on to Benin and then ending the trip in Guinea-Bissau.

Top of the agenda in the talks will be food supply issues, with African nations fearing shortages – particularly grain – due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But security will also loom large as France prepares to complete its pull-out from Mali in 2022, with all countries in the region seeking to head-off fears of Islamist insurgencies.

In Cameroon, which has been riven by ethnic violence and an insurgency by anglophone separatists, Macron will meet President Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years and is the longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.

Benin is a former French colony, but Guinea-Bissau was once a Portuguese colony while Cameroon’s colonial heritage is a mixture of British and German as well as French.

Macron meanwhile has insisted France’s military presence in the region will adapt rather than disappear once the pull-out from Mali is complete.