Etoudi is currently maneuvering to get a meeting between French president Emmanuel Macron and the 84 year old dictator, Paul Biya as soon as possible, Cameroon Intelligence Report has learnt from a well-placed source in Yaoundé. The new French president has already met Alassane Ouattara of the Côte d’Ivoire and Macky Sall of Senegal. Our informant hinted that Yaoundé has initiated discussion in this direction.

Paul Biya wishes to benefit from the meeting and to assure the French that he is still their man in the Sub Saharan region. Biya received the French Ambassador to Cameroon, Gilles Thibault, on the 30^th of May at the Unity Palace and spent nearly two hours pushing for a meeting with French president Macron.

We gathered that during the meeting with Biya, the French diplomat focused discussion notably on the security crisis in the Far North region, the investigation report following the Eséka railway accident of the 21^st of October 2016, the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the 25^th of May in Belgium and the G7 meeting in Italy including the election of President Emmanuel Macron and the legislative elections scheduled for mid-June 2017.

However, Biya was reportedly more interested in a possible meeting with Macron.  We also learned that it was Paul Biya who first showed the interest of this meeting and correspondences concerning a possible reception of Paul Biya at the Elysée have already been initiated.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Intelligence Report