A Reliable Partner, in a World Coming Apart

A Reliable Partner, in a World Coming Apart

Jul 18 , 2026. By Alexis Lamek ( Alexis Lamek is the ambassador of France in Ethiopia and to the African Union (AU). )

On France's National Day, the French Ambassador to Ethiopia and the Permanent Representative to the African Union, Alexis Lamek, takes stock of a 130-year partnership with Ethiopia, from budget support and visa liberalisation to COP32, arguing that predictability is what both reform and a fracturing world most need.

Ethiopia is a country in the middle of change. It has embarked on an ambitious agenda of reforms to open itself up, and France is supporting that transformation.

We were the first bilateral partner to back it through budget support, and we are proud of that. The goal is a more open economy, creates more jobs and wealth, and attracts international investors. Investment creates jobs, brings technology and knowledge, and feeds a country's development.

We should be honest. Ethiopia is not yet the country it has set out to become, because this is no easy task.

For seven years now, France has been the most attractive destination for foreign investors in all of Europe. That was the fruit of steady work, of listening to companies, identifying the obstacles in their way, and understanding what they most need: predictability.

My counterparts in the Ethiopian government tell me they want the same, and they can count on France to help them reach it.

As Ethiopia changes, so too does the relationship between our two countries, built over almost 130 years and carried by institutions with long histories of their own.

The Lycée Guebre Mariam is 80 years old and now in the middle of a historic shift that will give parents a far greater role in how the School is run. It is a remarkable School, with 1,800 students and excellent Baccalaureat results, one that has taught former presidents, academics and business leaders, and will continue to do so.

France has stood by Lycée Guebre Mariam for eight decades and will continue to do so.

The bond between France and Ethiopia is not only a matter of governments. What gives the exchange its meaning is the tie between our two peoples. On that front, I am pleased to report that the visa restrictions for travel to the Schengen Area no longer exist. It took real effort from the Ethiopian authorities and the Schengen countries, but those measures have now been lifted.

There are so many applications that securing appointments is hard, yet that backlog will clear quickly and the free movement of people can resume. That is important for all of us.

These people-to-people ties run through business, students, researchers and civil society, and through the media. We work closely with the Ethiopian Media Council (EMC) because a reliable press is vital to democratic life, above all at a time when some individuals, and even some states, set out to manipulate information. It is a danger we all have to fight.

The Ethiopian-French Alliance is a 110-year-old institution in a fine building in Piassa, where one can learn French and follow an excellent cultural programme. Last year, the Alliance opened the Habesha Creative Lab within its walls, an incubator for digital businesses that has welcomed Ethiopian creators and helped them develop their projects.

Among them was a promising animation studio, “Behager Lij,” a name that means the children of the country. Last month, it was invited to the International Animation Film Festival in Annecy, France. It came away with two of the competition's most prestigious awards, the first time an African studio had won them. The credit belongs entirely to “Behager Lij” and its talent, but we are proud to have helped it shine and win recognition on a global stage. That is the kind of thing that gives our work its meaning.

One might ask what the point of all this is in a world that seems to be coming apart. The world is indeed in a bad way.

The climate crisis worsens year by year, as scientists have long warned, and a month ago it was hotter in France than in Djibouti for two weeks, something we had never seen. The years ahead will be worse if we do nothing.

We also live in a world where rules are no longer respected, where wars are launched and waged outside the law. We are witnessing violations of international law in Ukraine and Sudan, breaches of the sovereignty and integrity of Lebanon, and so many other places. Journalists and medical personnel are being killed at unprecedented levels, in violations of international humanitarian law.

France is not giving up. We are acting. Through our G7 presidency and with partner countries, we are seeking answers to these crises.

In May, President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit in Nairobi with President William Ruto. The Africa Forward Summit gathered 49 countries to explore how they might tackle the great problems of the day together, in a format never tried before.

On climate, I welcomed Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister of France who served as president of COP21 a decade ago. That conference produced the Paris Agreement, still the framework within which the world has to fight global warming.

Laurent Fabius shared his experience as a COP President with Gedion Timotheos (PhD), the minister of Foreign Affairs, and the lessons he drew from it, because we all want COP32 next year in Addis Abeba to succeed. The fate of the whole planet depends on it.

There is one point essential to us as French diplomats, and I would say as Europeans. We are reliable partners. We make commitments, and we honour them. Our actions are announced in advance and remain predictable, and we act within the law. Not everyone in today's world can say the same.

That brings me to the African Union (AU). France is not a member, but a very close partner, impressed by the resolve of the African Union Commission and its member states to solve the crises afflicting the Continent.

As President Macron announced in May with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission and the UN Secretary-General, we will help the African Union replenish its Peace Fund and develop fertiliser production capacity across Africa.

We are also listening.

In March, Ghana secured a resolution at the General Assembly in New York on the slave trade of Africans, whose spirit we fully share. France was the first country to declare slavery a crime against humanity, 25 years ago, through a law of our Parliament. Two months ago, we passed another, on the restitution of cultural property, to ease requests from foreign states. Here too, France has been a pioneer.

On health, as we face epidemics from Marburg to Ebola, we are working with the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to strengthen public health security in Africa and beyond. We support the Continent's health sovereignty, in particular by developing African capacity to produce vaccines and medicines.

We are not giving up. We are working together, and we will keep doing so, globally, across Africa and within Ethiopia, with all our partners, for a rules-based world in which trust and solidarity matter most.

PUBLISHED ON Jul 18,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1368]