During his interview with The Ethiopian Herald over the week, HE Ambassador Alexis Lamek has highlighted the urgency of the global climate crisis and outlines France’s steadfast commitment to supporting developing nations—particularly in Africa—through climate finance and initiatives such as the Great Green Wall and Just Energy Transition Partnerships. He underscores the critical need for strong governance and transparency to ensure African countries can fully benefit from their rich reserves of critical minerals amid the global energy transition.
The ambassador also reiterates France’s firm backing of United Nations Security Council reform, including permanent representation for Africa in alignment with the African Union’s stance. Finally, he highlights France’s deepening collaboration with the African Union on peace, security, and strategic dialogue, reaffirming their shared commitment to tackling pressing regional and global challenges. We hope readers find these insights informative and thought-provoking—enjoy the read.
Africa is working to implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). So, how do you plan to support the creation of the free trade area?
It is a very important step in the construction of an African Unity. Let me speak about our experience as Europeans. France is one of the founding countries that started the European Union. Actually, it is through the economy and free trade that we actually constructed our unity. It took a lot of time. It was very progressive. We started with steel and coal, and diversified little by little. And we ended up creating this very unique entity that is the European Union.
When we saw that there was a political will on the side of the African Union to work along these lines, we could only support that. It is part of the dialogue that we have with the AU, both at the EU level and at the French level. And as far as we are concerned, through technical assistance, we try to provide some support to share our experience. If our AU partners want to actually benefit from our experience, we’re very happy to share it.
And experience sharing is very important, because we can share what process we went through. If there were some mistakes, we can share that. If there were some successes, we can share that.
How is France working with Africa in overcoming the impact of climate change, especially because climate change has its toll against Africa?
Climate change is impacting all of us. Last month (in June) we just had the hottest month ever in Europe. We all know first-hand that it impacts all of us. It impacts Africa, it impacts even this country, with very massive floods and weather-related disasters.
There is clearly an emergency, and it’s important that we all share this sense of urgency. Ten years ago, the COP21 was organized in Paris, where the Paris Agreement was adopted. And the challenge now for all of us is to make sure that we continue along these lines.
We’re not exactly there. So, the first thing that we do, as a very committed state when it comes to climate issues, is both to encourage other countries to keep the same level of ambition, and second, to help countries which are facing challenges to address them and go ahead. That’s why France is contributing to the USD 100 billion that we committed to raise every year back in Copenhagen in 2009, in order to support developing countries to face the consequences of climate change.
France, at this moment, is providing USD 7 billion a year, both for adaptation and for mitigation. Adaptation is what is required for countries, which are impacted by climate change, for them to prevent, to limit those risks through the construction of dikes, through the fight against water erosion, and the different works which have to be done to prevent the impact of climate change. So, this is one important part of what we do globally.
Now, when it comes to Africa, in the diplomatic discussion, we try to make sure that all this climate finance goes also to Africa and that it is not mostly used by emerging economies. It’s a matter of climate justice to make sure that all those who actually need to benefit from this climate finance actually get their fair share.
But we work also on a more practical or concrete level. For example, our support includes what we call the Accelerator of the Great Green Wall. It’s an initiative which was launched by President Macron four years ago, in support of the African Union’s initiative, the Great Green Wall. And the purpose was to allow Africa to gather financial commitments from various donors to fund the Great Green Wall.
We’ve been also working on what we call Just Energy Transition Partnerships, JETP. That was launched a few years ago in order to support developing countries in exiting from fossil fuels.
It started with South Africa and Senegal, which both benefit from JETP initiatives here in Africa. And we’ve been engaged in the fight against coastal erosion, in favor of ocean preservation, sustainable blue economy. And I want to mention the fact that just last month, we hosted a United Nations Conference for Oceans in the city of Nice, in France, where we addressed all these issues.
Both in terms of technical assistance or diplomacy we tried to address this very pressing issue. In this regard, I want to pay tribute to the initiatives taken by Ethiopia. In September, Ethiopia is going to host the second African Climate Summit, together with the AU. I think it’s a very important moment, because it’s going to provide an occasion to mobilize the international community, in particular the African countries, and to maximize the chances for the COP30, which is going to be held in Brazil, to be a success.
Africa is believed to have 30% of the world’s critical minerals that support the global energy transition. How do you think can Africa benefit from this transition? And what kind of action should be made to make sure that Africa doesn’t fall into such a sphere?
Energy transition is going to change many things in the relation between states. Some countries, like Ethiopia, actually do happen to have some very important ores when it comes to rare earths or critical minerals. And based on history, the important point is to ensure that there is a strong governance in place when these minerals are exploited. We know by experience that countries which happen to have extraordinary resources in the past, like diamond, oil well, for those countries it turned out to be a curse, because of a lack of a strong governance.
And this fueled corruption, this kind of resources fueled conflict. And it’s clearly something that needs to be taken into account. So based on all the experience it’s important to have a strong governance, transparency, accountability, strong institutions. This is what actually is going to make these natural resources a real fantastic potential for the development of this country. Governance, transparency, accountability, strong institutions. That’s the recipe to make sure that the country can enjoy the best out of its resources and make it a fantastic tool to develop the country.
Africans raise the issue of under-representation in the UN Security Council permanent seat. So in the Council, your country has a veto power. So how do you support the continent’s quest for a permanent seat?
It’s a very important question for us diplomats. It’s a very important issue. It’s actually been discussed for more than 30 years when for the first time, a number of countries said ‘we need to reform the security council, to enlarge it in order to allow for new members to become permanent members,’
And France is a permanent member, one of the five permanent members. We were one of the first permanent members to support fully this idea of a reform. At this day, together with the UK, which is very much committed to that, we support very strongly this reform of the security council. Actually, as it happens, we are totally aligned with the position of the AU.
At this moment the Security Council has 15 members, including five permanent members. We believe that we should add six more permanent members. And we support, in this regard, countries like Brazil, Japan, Germany, and India to become permanent members, but we believe that we should add also two African permanent members.
It will be for the Africans to decide which countries. We’re not going to say this one, that one.
It’s an anomaly. At this moment, there is no African country as a permanent member, and this anomaly should be corrected. So there are discussions continuing for that in New York, and we have expressed our support in this regard. And as I said, we are fully endorsing the position of the AU.
Regarding veto, at this moment, we are permanent members, so we have the possibility to cast a veto, but we don’t do that. We believe that the Security Council has been undermined by an abusive use of veto by a number of countries, and I’m not saying that we should suppress the possibility for a country to use its veto. What I’m saying is that we should put in place an understanding, an agreement, a political agreement by which we would decide not to use veto in certain circumstances, when crimes of genocide, war crimes, international crimes or mass killings are perpetrated. Countries should decide not to use their veto because otherwise that use is an abusive use.
So we have started an initiative on that together with Mexico, and now more than 100 countries are actually supporting this initiative, this call for this limitation of the use of veto. As far as we are concerned, we have not used veto for 40 years.
So do you see any hope for Africa to join the UNSC with permanent seat?
Certainly. There are 54 African members of the United Nations. It’s more than a quarter, and we just need two-thirds of the vote to pass a reform. So if African countries fully get involved in support of this security reform, if they put on the table a text, a draft resolution, for example, I’m pretty sure it could pass. We would certainly support it.
So it’s up to African countries….?
Not just for African countries, it’s up to all of us, but Africa could take the lead and I’m pretty sure they would have the votes. We would support this initiative.
Africa is struggling with conflict and security issues in various parts of the world. So how does France compare in this regard, usually, peace and security, justice, governance?
When it comes to peace and security, the primary responsibility is with the UN Security Council. I’ve spent, seven years at the Security Council as a French diplomat there. And what I can tell you is that the African Union has a special role when it comes to addressing crisis, security crisis on the African continent.
First of all, there are three African countries, always, elected members of the Security Council. It is what they call the A3. And we work very closely with them, because on African issues, usually they set the tone. They define what is going to be the position around which consensus is going to be built. In this regard, the AU, which defines the position of the African countries, plays a critically important role. That’s why we attach a very high importance to our dialogue with the African Union.
The Foreign Minister of France, Jean-Noël Barrot, was appointed last year. For his first trip to Africa, he wanted to come here. And he came here, to the African Union, for a strategic dialogue, precisely to see on all the issues on the agenda of the Security Council in New York. Where do we stand? How can we better work together? How can we make sure that our positions converge? And how can we effectively cooperate? And I think it was a very important moment.
And given the current crisis of multilateralism, we’re going to do that even more. So, yes, I can tell you that, in particular, in these difficult times, France and the African Union, African countries, are very close together.
There is one issue on which we have been working extremely closely. And it has to do with the tools that we give ourselves to work on crisis management. There was a resolution adopted two years ago by the Security Council, Resolution 2719, which gives the possibility for the Security Council to support African peace operations.
And so what we are trying to do, together with the African Union, is to see how we can make sure that the African peace operations can enjoy the funding based on UN assessed contributions. There are some obstacles, but we try to address them together. In any case, we have been working for years with the AU on this field, and it has been a very rewarding cooperation.
Thank you very much for your time!
Thank you!
BY ZEKARIAS WOLDEMARIAM
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 12 JULY 2025
