French President Emmanuel Macron began a two -day visit to the Nation of the Indian Ocean of Madagascar and spoke of the need for his country to find new markets and stimulate economic cooperation in the region.
Macron's visit marked the first by a French chief of the former colony off the east coast of Africa since Jacques Chirac in 2005.
The journey has also immersed disputes between the two countries arising from the colonial era, in particular the statements of Madagascar on a group of small islands which are a French territory and its requirements that France refers the remains of a local king who was killed by the French colonial forces in the late 1800s.
Macron met the president of Madagascan, Andry Rajoelina, in the capital, Antananarivo, where they signed several agreements and memorandums of understanding, including in energy, agriculture and education.
Macron has also announced the financing of the French development agency and a loan from the French treasure for the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Volobe in eastern Madagascar, which has been planned for almost a decade.
Macron should attend a summit of the Indian Ocean Commission on Thursday, a block made up of Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles and Réunion, which is a territory of France.
China, India and the European Union are part of a group of international countries and organizations which have an observer status at the Commission.
“We have to conquer, at least, the (Indian Ocean Commission) market,” said Macron on Wednesday.
“And then, more broadly, East Africa and the Indian Ocean.”
On some of their disagreements, Rajoelina said that there would be a new series of meetings on June 30 on the fate of the scattered islands, five small islands around Madagascar which fall under the territories of France abroad but are claimed by Madagascar.
France promotes a system where the islands would be managed jointly by the two countries, but the decision of the United Kingdom last year to submit control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in Madagascar to push the total control of the dispersed islands, which are known as the scattered islands in France.
Madagascar and France “are determined to find a solution together,” said Rajoelina.
Macron said he would work with Madagascar for the agreed return of three skulls that were taken in Madagascar over 125 years ago and exhibited in a Paris museum.
One of them would be the skull of King Toera of the Sakalava people, beheaded by French troops in 1897.
