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Hollande announces decisions on security, economy at Paris summit

07 December 2013 22:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA.Pledging to open a new chapter with African countries, French President Francois Hollande on Saturday proposed Paris's help to improve Africans' military performance and to forge a common stance to fight against the climate change, APA reports quoting XInhua.

Held since 1975, Africa-France summit was also an opportunity for Hollande to offer more aid to his partners in Africa and revive trade links enough to win back Paris' share in the promising African market.

"This summit is an exceptional moment hold in exceptional circumstances and outcomes with exceptional decisions," the president told participants at the meeting's closing ceremony.

"Africa needs to ensure alone its security so that Europe can ensure its security in turn. Our continents are linked and the terrorism did not know borders," Hollande said.

Frech president told African participants at Paris summit to help create a joint military force to act swiftly to fight terrorism, trafficking and piracy.

In a joint statement agreed at the meeting, "France committed to supporting the African Union's efforts to reach full operationalization of the African Standby Force (ASF) and its Rapid Deployment Capability (RDC) by 2015."

As sectarian violence, political standoff and terrorism have plunged many African states into chaos for several years, Paris summit urged an increase in "the level and predictability of financing for African peacekeeping operations."

Affirming that "Africa is the continent of the future," Hollande reiterated France's target to double trade exchange with African partners and to invest more in a lucrative market where French faces a fierce competition from emerging markets.

Furthermore, he also vowed to aid to Africa to 20 billion euros (27.41 billion U.S. dollars) over the coming five years to help finance development schemes in African countries whose leaders promised "to achieve the highest standards of economic and financial transparency," in order to "to spur on economic exchanges," and "promote quality growth, which creates jobs."

Closing works of the summit, France also unveiled the creation of European-African alliance to outline a roadmap to fight climate change to be discussed at Paris meeting scheduled in 2015.

With its African partners, Paris "highlighted the need for a balanced climate agreement ... focusing both on mitigation and adaptation, and including the means of implementation, in particular strengthening technology transfer, capacity building measures for the most vulnerable countries, and the provision of financial resources for Africa..."

Besides, they agreed on the necessity of swift moves to limit global warming.