Thousands turn up for Francophone Games launch in DR Congo

Tens of thousands of spectators attended Friday’s 28 July 2023 opening ceremony of the ninth Francophone Games in DR Congo’s capital Kinshasa, celebrating a rare feel-good event in the impoverished and conflict-torn country.

Gathering athletes and artists from mostly French-speaking countries, the Games are being held for the first time in a central African metropolis of an estimated 15 million people — the world’s largest French-speaking city.

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Thousands of spectators turned up for games launch

Some 80,000 spectators packed Kinshasa’s Stade des Martyrs stadium to watch a flag parade and hear speeches by dignitaries. Amid the stadium’s raucous atmosphere, Bonheur, a 24-year-old student, said he thought organising the Games in Kinshasa was “a very good idea”.

“It will allow the country to develop”, he told AFP. His fellow student Epaphrodit, 24, agreed: “If we only focus on the problems, we won’t make any progress”. After the parade, a sound and light show demonstrated the diverse wildlife and rich cultural heritage of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with performances by dandies known as “sapeurs”, as well as artists wearing colourful costumes of salvaged plastic.

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Fally Ipupa, one of the country’s biggest pop stars, performed the grand finale. But while the ceremony started exactly on time — considered a feat in habitually unpunctual DRC — fears over safety standards and security have dogged the run-up to the Games.

Several delegations have called off their participation or sent smaller teams. The Canadian province of Quebec, for example, has pulled out. Over the past several weeks, government authorities in DRC have repeatedly insisted that the nation is up to the task.

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The country was chosen in 2019 as the host of the Games, an event held every four years which combines both sport and culture. They were originally scheduled to take place in 2021 but were postponed because of the Covid pandemic and then delayed again last year because the facilities were not ready.

DRC, one of the poorest in the world?

The DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite its vast mineral wealth. Militias also ravage the east, with one, the M23, having captured swathes of territory since re-emerging from dormancy in late 2021.

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The DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting M23 rebels, which independent UN experts and several Western countries, including the United States, agree with, despite denials from Kigali. Tensions between the neighbouring countries have also spilt over into the Games.

Louise Mushikiwabo, the head of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) — the French-speaking equivalent of the Commonwealth — is a Rwandan national. Despite the DRC government at first announcing that she would attend, Mushikiwabo’s office denied it this week, saying she hadn’t received an invitation.

On Friday, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi told the crowd of spectators in Kinshasa that the Games are “highly symbolic” because they mark the solidarity of French-speaking people around the world with the Congolese people who are “victims of unjust aggression”.

Expenditure on games

At the same time as ramping up military spending to respond to the conflict in the east, the Congolese government has had to spend significant sums building new sports facilities in its capital.

The total cost is unclear, but the government has cast its outlay as an investment in the youth of the country, who will be able to use brand-new sporting installations. The Games’ organisers have also flatly rejected accusations that the event will be unsafe.

Some 4,500 police officers and members of the Republican Guard have been deployed in Kinshasa, while a private-security firm has been hired to guard the facilities. The 10-day Games run until August 6 and will feature nine sports competitions and 11 cultural contests.

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© Agence France-Presse