The Senegalese head of state, Macky Sall, announced on Saturday that he had repealed the decree setting the date of the presidential election at February 25. A decision which caused numerous clashes in the country’s capital.
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In Château-Rouge, a district in the north of Paris, we did not meet anyone on Monday February 5 to defend President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone the date of the presidential election. “These are pretexts to postpone the electionestimates a passerby. But that’s not what he wants, he wants to stay but we don’t know until when.” Senegalese deputies on Monday examine President Macky Sall’s controversial project which has caused numerous clashes in Dakar, the country’s capital, particularly outside the National Assembly.
Pape, 39, works in the restaurant business in Roissy and is more aware than ever of what is happening in Dakar: “The entire Senegalese population is angry. There is no one who is with him. We no longer want Macky Sall, he is a dictator. We want him to come out and leave our country in peace. ” These Senegalese are revolted by the authoritarian drift that power has taken for months: “The university was closed because of him. It’s not good”, says a Senegalese woman living in Paris. The Dakar faculty has been closed for seven months. It is historically a place of protest.
“Macky Sall only listens to France”
A woman sighs in front of her hair salon. “I wonder why African presidents love powershe believes. You’re done, you’ve served two terms… It’s okay, someone else will come.” His colleague rushes to share his anger: “We are democrats in Senegal! We know what we are doing and what we want. It is not normal what Macky Sall is doing and everyone should help us like France and the African Union.” For her, Paris must be much firmer towards Dakar: “Macky Sall only listens to France. We know that France is with him and that hurts us very much. We are very worried. It’s the first time in the history of Senegal that this has happened. That’s why ‘we won’t let it happen.’
But the information trickles in. A television channel saw its signal cut on Sunday. “Walf TV is the people’s TV. They were the ones who informed people and that doesn’t suit them, that’s why Walf TV was cut”, continues the Franco-Senegalese. There remains social networks, notably videos posted on TikTok. But for several hours, very little content has reached it since the mobile Internet has also been blocked since Monday morning in the Senegalese capital.
