France is to invest about €400-million in the next four years to help South Africa with service delivery, job creation and environmental and sustainable development, French ambassador Denis Pietton said on Monday.
”In terms of service delivery, we will help with providing development assistance,” the ambassador said at the Africa Dialogue Lecture series, under the topic ”Franco-African Relations”, in Pretoria.
Pietton said France could help Africa to have a bigger say in global issues by bringing to the international agenda issues that African states considered important, like reform of the United Nations Security Council, global climate change and HIV/Aids.
He added that France also supported the reform of the UN and even suggested that at least two seats on the permanent UN council should be held by African countries.
Touching on immigration and the African Union’s efforts to improve peace and security on the continent, Pietton emphasised that immigration needed to be jointly managed by the countries involved.
”Immigration will go on. France’s position on immigration is to ensure that it benefits both rich and poor countries alike. Currently, only developed countries are benefiting,” he said.
The ambassador said Afro-pessimism was now over and he praised African states for taking advantage of their natural resources and youthful demographics to achieve rapid economic growth.
He said it was an ”outrage” that France was being blamed for the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which almost a million Tutsis and Hutu moderates were butchered by Hutu extremists.
”France brought the genocide to the attention of the United Nations. Few countries were listening and were not planning on doing anything about it,” he said.
Relations between the two countries were still sour.
”Relations between Rwanda and France were unfortunately cut off by the Rwandan government, but we hope in the near future, that the relations will be re-established,” Pietton said. — Sapa