Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Excellencies, Dear Friends,

We are at the end of an era. The world order fashioned after the Second World War no longer exists. This multilateral system, which guaranteed a semblance of stability, has collapsed under the weight of new geopolitical realities. The war in Ukraine, for example, has accelerated the fragmentation of traditional alliances: while Europe and the United States see it as a major strategic break, many countries in the global South refuse to take sides, recalling the non-alignment logics of the Cold War.

We are entering an era of plurilateralism, where centers of gravity are multiplying, where blocs are readjusting, and where the new powers of the South are no longer mere spectators, but essential players. The rise of the BRICS, whose GDP in purchasing power parity now exceeds that of the G7, is an eloquent illustration of this. China, now Africa's leading trading partner, has established itself over the past two decades as a partner of choice, India and Indonesia are redrawing global supply chains, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which will create a market of 1.3 billion consumers by 2030 New South, Old World - this is how we have chosen to name the Africa Political Outlook summit. This deliberately incisive theme reflects the dynamic transformation underway on the African continent, as it redefines its relationship with a changing world order. It reflects the ambition of an emerging South, asserting its voice, its priorities, its agenda and its aspirations in the face of structures inherited from the past.

This dialogue is essential not only for Africa, but also for its European and international partners. It invites us to rethink our cooperation frameworks together, to move beyond old paradigms and build relationships based on shared interests, reciprocity and a common vision of a more balanced future. Through this prism, the summit will question the balance of power, new alliances and trajectories for a more sovereign and inclusive emergence. In the Sahel, African security alliances have replaced endogenous solutions, proving that our security must be designed by, for and with the players, and not imported.

The Global South has become a Giant South. It is no longer just a periphery, a phenomenon, a stammering. It's the new geostrategic reality. This South asserts itself, proposes, builds, allies, rallies.

We are no longer in a bipolar or unipolar world, but in a transition towards an as yet undefined order, where history hesitates between chaos and rebirth. The Trump II era marked a turning point with its "isolationist transactionalism", a strategic retreat which, paradoxically, opened the way to new international dynamics, to what we might call post-multilateralism. These must be structured, not by nostalgia for a bygone past, but by a vision of the future.

This return to the past is actually a leap into the future.

And in this changing world, Africa and the countries of the South have a historic responsibility: to position themselves not as followers, but as builders. We must formulate our own doctrine, define our own role, impose our own tempo. The time for new energies has arrived.

The energy of values: those of solidarity, assumed sovereignty, respect for peoples and international justice.

The energy of dreamers: because no power has ever been built without uninhibited ambition, visionary imagination and a high, impossible, determined, powerful level of ambition.

The energy of builders, of hard workers, of those who feel the urgency and impatience of execution to enable Africa's youth to transform the continent's potential into prosperity.

As part of this dynamic, we need to move beyond the paradigm of development aid. Aid doesn't develop. It maintains. What we need is structuring financing, a framework that will enable the realization of a collective ambition. Africa can no longer be a mere recipient of scattered investments. It must be a powerhouse of proposals. That's why the African Union needs an executive mandate to raise sovereign funds to finance our major continental projects. Economic independence is a prerequisite for geopolitical sovereignty. Africa has another card to play: that of a strategic partner for Europe. In the face of international disorder, we can and must build new resonances, not in a paternalistic relationship, but in a logic of alliance between equals. We must move from partnership to alliance.

To this end, the new strategic cycle between Europe and Africa can be structured around three major priorities:

• Peace, because without security, there can be no emergence or influence.
• Prosperity, shared prosperity, because a continent that creates wealth and opportunities guarantees its future.
• Power, co-power, because Africa must earn respect on the international stage and have a say in global decisions.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is reorganizing, rethinking and reinventing itself.

Africa and the global South must take their destiny into their own hands. We must no longer simply exist in the world order, we must shape it. It's time for ambition. It's time for vision. It's time for action.

Gramsci: "The old world is dying, the new is slow to appear". It's up to us to give birth to it.

Thank you very much.