In the video, the expression on the face of French President Emmanuel Macron is unsmiling, maybe even frustrated. "I think they forgot to say ‘thank you,'" Macron says. He adds, more directly: "I say this for all the African governments who've not had the courage in the face of public opinion to bear it that none of them would be in a sovereign country today if the French army had not been deployed in this region." Macron waves a wagging finger, his eyebrows raised.

This scene has been generating intense reactions since Monday. It is a passage from Macron's speech held at the annual meeting of French ambassadors, who left their posts around the world to gather at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Journalists were also invited — so Macron must have known that his words would reach a wider audience.

Nina Wilen, an analyst at Belgian Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, told DW that the remarks were likely a strategic error.

"And we know that, during visits to Africa, he has also given comments that have not been appreciated by the African leaders, sometimes joking when it wasn't really appropriate to do so," Wilén said.

During his first presidential trip to Africa in 2017, Macron caused upset during a casual session with students in Burkina Faso, accompanied by then-President Roch Marc Kabore. He told them it was Kabore's job and not France's to fix the electricity system, since France was no longer a colonial power. When Kabore left shortly for a bathroom break, Macron shouted: "Look, he's leaving to fix the air condition!" — a joke which has since been criticized as arrogant.

A more serious incident unfolded during a press conference in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic........

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