Global Voices Online

Jeremy Weate at Naijablog posted an article on Gabonese President Omar Bongo's taste for luxury.

Association des gabonais d'Amiens dispels a mermaid hoax [Fr]. Photographs of a mermaid supposedly discovered dead on a beach in Libreville were actually downloaded from an eBay auction for a mermaid sighting in St. Petersburg, Florida. The St. Petersburg photographs sold for US$1500 to a French natural history museum.

Association des gabonais d'Amiens posts a video of the “Michael Jackson of Gabon.” [Fr]

Association des gabonais d'Amiens writes about a monument in Airaines, a small French village of 2,000 people, dedicated to Charles Ntchorere, a Gabonese captain in the French army [Fr] who was taken prisoner and executed by German forces in 1940.

Reflecting on the French presidential elections [Fr], Don Ray of Le Blog de Don Ray comes away with three impressions: first, the election, with its record turnout, was proof of France's robust democracy; second, socialism in France is finished; and last, Sarkozy's presidency will do little to change France's policy toward Africa. After all, according to Omar Bongo, Sarkozy is the “most gabonais of all French.” Mr. Bongo should know; in addition to being president of Gabon, he is the longest serving head of state on the continent.

African journalists working in France are calling on the two remaining French presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, to begin a new chapter in Franco-African relations (Fr), according to the blog of the Alliance for Democratic Progress. “We have to reconsider everything, make a fresh start, a sort of “big bang,” so that France stops treating us like children. Africa must be a partner.” (Fr)

Guadeloupe Attitude posts [Fr] an article by Maité Mapangou, Executive Secretary of OPDAS-Gabon [Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS in Gabon] concluding that “circumcised or not, any man who does not protect himself is a potential agent of the spread of the virus“. The article comes in response to a recent news story alleging that circumcision might have a protective effect vis-a-vis HIV.

Demain le Congo Brazzaville posts [Fr] a complaint lodged in the French accusing of embezzlement African leaders such as Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassoun Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso. The complaint acknowledges that a French judge cannot adjudicate on salaries of African dictators but emphasizes the massive amounts of real estate owned by the accused African leaders in France.