Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara will meet French President Emmnauel Macron on Friday just days after announcing he would run for a third-term despite protests by opponents who say the constitution forbids him to contest the October vote. Macron has repeatedly said he wants to break from the past in which France often seemed to call the shots in its former colonies and said that it was time for older generations to hand over to Africa’s younger politicians. In March, he had welcomed Ouattara’s initial decision not to stand again, calling him a “man of his word”.
