Western separatists attack French secretary of state

Buea Cameroon - 30 June I - separatists attack the convoy of the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.

Emmanuel Macron had remained silent until this moment.

Until then, in the country and before international public opinion, the US had been in the spotlight for its statements in opposition to Cameroonian governance - with Nikky Halley, the US representative to the UN sending threatening letters and the US ambassador in Yaounde continuing to declare for Paul Biya to go into retirement.

Emmanuel Macron, a young president, brusque and complex, needed a major incident to come into the picture. The attack on the convoy of his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, 30 June 2018 in Buea brings the major problem of the separatists back to the international public eye.

On 29 June, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne met with Paul Biya during a courtesy visit after which he informed the presidency of France's position on supporting the unity of the country, 'unity in diversity', etc.

The attack of the French Secretary of State's convoy on the road to Buea prompted the French president to make a phone call to Biya.

The Cameroonian government is working to restore order in the area after the death of 'six gendarmes', which prompted Paul Biya to send the army to the area on 30 November 2017 to curb the continued attacks on Anglophone schools and hospitals.

The attack on the convoy of the French Secretary of State, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, prompted France to take a stand in the Anglophone crisis from which it had always kept its distance.

For the first time since the outbreak of the so-called Anglophone crisis, violent clashes pitted secessionist terrorists against defence and security forces inside Buea, the capital of the south-western region.

After about four hours of sporadic shooting, the regular army regained control of the capital city of the South West, one of the two English-speaking regions plagued by socio-political crisis for two years.

It was in this problematic context that Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Secretary of State for Europe and Foreign Affairs, spent a few hours in Buea. He arrived under heavy escort from Yaounde where he had been received a few hours earlier in an audience at the Unity Palace by Paul Biya, the President of the Republic.

"Jean Baptiste Lemoyne received a warm welcome in Buea and had a fruitful meeting with local authorities and civil society in the South West," said Gilles Thibault, the French Ambassador to Cameroon, a member of the official delegation that accompanied Jean Baptiste Lemoyne to the South West region.

With the Cameroonian Head of State on the one hand and his guests meeting in Buea on the other hand, the member of the French government exchanged ways and means to get out of the crisis in the North West and South West .

The emissary of the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron, said that only dialogue can bring peace.

France, which has always supported dialogue at a distance, is therefore embarking on a new approach to find solutions to the Anglophone crisis

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