8,700 kilometers from Paris, Emmanuel Macron intended to use his visit to Madagascar on Thursday, April 23 and Friday, April 24, to reaffirm France's presence in the Indian Ocean, an area increasingly coveted by neighboring powers. On Thursday, he will attend the fifth summit of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), which, in addition to France through Réunion, includes Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles. While the official theme is food security in the region, it was also expected to address, more or less discreetly, the territorial disputes inherited from colonization.

Madagascar's president, Andry Rajoelina, has made the return of the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean one of his priorities, consistently reiterating his demand during his official visits to Paris since his election in 2019. This chain of small islands, located in the Mozambique Channel, has been claimed by the Malagasy for more than half a century. However, they have remained French after the country's independence in 1960, giving the European nation a strategic position on a major route of international trade, between Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

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