The Ho Collective of the Socialist Movement of Ghana has issued a statement strongly condemning the invitation extended to French President Emmanuel Macron to deliver a keynote address at the High-Level Consultative Conference on Reparatory Justice, scheduled for June 17 to 19 in Accra.
The statement, signed by Atisu Olivia, Youth Wing Leader of the Ho Collective, describes Macron's planned presence and address as "deeply problematic, undignified, and an affront to the very cause it claims to advance," pointing directly to France's abstention from the United Nations resolution on reparatory justice in March 2026 as the central contradiction undermining the invitation.
"A state that will not stand for reparatory justice at the United Nations has no credibility as its mouthpiece," the statement reads, arguing that the abstention represents not a procedural disagreement but a deliberate and continued resistance to accountability. The SMG characterises Macron's sudden interest in the reparations agenda as a calculated attempt to rehabilitate France's image on the continent and secure continued access to Africa's resources, rather than a genuine commitment to justice.
The statement draws a direct line between France's military expulsion from the Sahel and Macron's current African engagement, arguing that the invitation to Accra signals a troubling indifference to the anti-imperialist significance of that expulsion. "The removal of French military troops in the Sahel was a symbolic act of anti-imperialism," the SMG writes, adding that extending Macron a platform on African soil either ignores or dismisses that historic statement entirely.
The Ho Collective also raises the question of the CFA Franc, describing it as a neocolonial currency that continues to strangle the monetary sovereignty of Francophone West African nations, and insists that if Macron genuinely wishes to contribute to reparatory justice, the starting point is the economic liberation of the countries France continues to hold in financial subordination, not a keynote address in Accra. The statement warns further that granting Macron any speaking role at the conference risks turning the entire reparations project into a European-managed one, opening the door for other colonial powers to insert themselves, dilute the agenda, and redirect a cause built through decades of African struggle into a public relations vehicle for the very states that perpetrated the crimes in question.
The SMG is calling for the immediate rescinding of the keynote invitation and urging African governments, civil society organisations and the broader popular movement to echo the condemnation.
The full statement of the Ho Collective of the Socialist Movement of Ghana is attached.