French President Emmanuel Macron, being the leader of the third-largest slave-trading nation in Europe, is accused of faking his newfound support for reparatory justice for historical injustices, particularly those connected to the transatlantic enslavement of Africans.Macron has been invited to Ghana for the Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice in Accra on Wednesday, 17 June 2026. An event that is supposed to be a safe space for Africans and Afro-descendants alone to decide on the next step for reparations.President of Ghana John Mahama, acting as the African Union Champion for Reparations, has shocked many in Africa when he invited Macron, despite having declined to support Ghana’s AU-sponsored UN resolution declaring transatlantic trade slavery the greatest crime against humanity.Mahama is also criticised by fellow African leaders for congratulating Macron on showing an “honest and exemplary” leader on reparations. But France kept for 170 years “Code Noir or Black code, a law that defined the legal status of enslaved people in the French colonial empire, classifying them as property. Code Noir was only repealed and not “nullified” recently in French Parliament. Nullifying slavery would have opened the door for reparations because it would make it invalid from the beginning or that it never had the “authority” to be enforced. However, repealing Code Noir simply meant that the law was removed and the case is closed.Since the code was repealed, and amid a loss of influence in the Sahel region, Macron has visited both Ghana and Kenya three times in less than two months.The conference, which will be hosted by John Dramani Mahama, is expected to bring together world leaders, policymakers, academics, and other stakeholders to explore practical pathways to address historical wrongs and promote justice-focused international dialogue.Macron is expected to engage in what has been described as a good-faith dialogue on historical injustices against Africans and outline France’s position and commitments on the issue of reparatory justice. The civil society group, Ho Collective of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, has called for a boycott of the conference, citing Macron’s invitation.The civil society and other NGO argued that inviting Macron to the Reparatory Conference is “like inviting a rapist to a therapy session.”The Ho Collective of the Socialist Movement of Ghana issued a statement strongly condemning the invitation to Macron.“His presence and address at the summit are deeply problematic, undignified, and an affront to the very cause it claims to advance,” Ho-Collective Youth Wing Leader Atisu Olivia said.France, the largest coloniser of Africa, has never apologised for its complicity and for years has destabilised the Sahel, exploited its resources and continues to pursue neo-colonial relations with Africa. “Macron’s keynote address is not solidarity. It is a calculated bid to rehabilitate France’s image and secure unimpeded access to the continent’s vast wealth, Olivia added.The civilian society group said French abstention at the UN Slavery vote cannot be dismissed. It is a statement of ambivalence and continued resistance to accountability, exposing the contradiction at the heart of Macron’s invitation. A state that will not stand for reparatory justice at the United Nations has no credibility as its mouthpiece. He said giving France a platform at this conference is an affront to the millions who endured enslavement, to the generations still living with its consequences, and to those who have spent their lives demanding justice yet to be delivered. This cause does not need the participation of those with no genuine commitment to it. It needs protection from them.“How do we give Macron the voice to speak, when a couple of months ago, France could not vote a yes, how can we overlook this contradiction? How does the accused, who has shown no remorse, offered no apology, or shown any accountability, become the central voice in this conference? France is complicit and must not be seen as a neutral actor,” he said.The removal of the French military troops in the Sahel was a symbolic act of anti-imperialism, an invitation to Emmanuel Macron to speak on Reparatory Justice on African soil implies that “either we are tone deaf to this important statement by the governments in the Sahel or simply ignoring its importance.” As the African continent continuously works to demand Reparations, the Francophone West Africa continues to suffer from colonialism, that is, economic colonialism.Olivia said France continues to strangle the necks of lanky, underdeveloped countries by undermining their sovereignty and economic transformation in its quest to improve and maintain its own French economic and political interests. “If Emmanuel Macron, as President of France, wants to contribute to Reparatory Justice in Africa, the right thing for him is to start with our brothers and sisters in Francophone West Africa who have suffered for many years under the crisis of the CFA, the neocolonial currency that still renders them as slaves.”Giving Macron any presence or chance to speak at the Next Step Conference symbolically turns the Reparations project into a European-managed one. This emboldens other colonial powers to insert themselves, dilute, and change the cause that Africans have struggled for. It also becomes a PR vehicle for France to wash off the blood of slavery, political assassination, looting, and decades of political interference in Africa.