Emmanuel Macron’s France, like the French Bourbons, have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing from history.

A viral video is doing the rounds depicting French barbarism during which two white males and a white woman are urinating on a prone and naked African child while some scores of French villagers are watching without anyone intervening to stop this degrading and humiliating spectacle. Some are even excitedly photographing this shameful episode.

Why does this African youngster suffer this indignity? The government of Mali expelled the French ambassador from Bamako and the French villagers rounded up and arrested an innocent Mali youngster in France, stripped him naked, prostrated him and began to take turns urinating on him. Not even the “civilised” white lady has any shame on urinating on an African boy in public.

The silence not only of the French government but also of the so-called human rights fraternity around the world was deafening. So far we have heard of no media outrage at this. What about the quisling Ecowas, African Union, or African ambassadors in Paris, let alone those protagonists of double standards called the European Union? They all are as silent as the cemetery. 

Imagine were this episode committed by a horde of African villagers on an innocent white child. The world would never have heard the end of recriminations against African “savagery and barbarism”. French civilisation my foot. Go ahead Niger and expel the French ambassador in Niamey and Macron will most likely unleash his 2,000 soldiers in Niamey to restore French “civilisation” in Niger.

Prof Themba Sono, Tshwane