After meeting the Congolese globetrotter Félix Tshisekedi, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated France’s support for mediation efforts to resolve the crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This statement has been peddled ad nauseam by global leaders since the crisis intensified. It has become a ritual phrase, repeated at every diplomatic encounter, presented as proof of engagement and responsibility. Yet on the ground, events continue to unfold in a direction that renders such declarations increasingly weak.
Tshisekedi has repeatedly undermined the very frameworks global leaders claim to support. The Luanda process, which demanded a ceasefire effective February 18, was meant to create the conditions for de-escalation and political dialogue. Instead, it was swiftly disregarded. Military offensives resumed, and violence continued across strategic areas in eastern DRC.
At the same time, Kinshasa continues to tolerate and cooperate with armed militias such as the Wazalendo and the FDL–forces whose dismantlement has long been identified as a necessary step toward restoring stability. This contradiction exposes a fundamental gap between diplomatic commitments and operational realities.
Despite this pattern, global leaders continue to receive Tshisekedi and repeat the same exhausted narrative of supporting mediation.
President Macron, the latest to host Tshisekedi, had an opportunity to address this contradiction directly. Supporting mediation is not merely a matter of issuing statements. It requires confronting the actions that undermine it. It requires clarity, consistency, and, where necessary, consequences.
Instead, the absence of accountability has allowed escalation to continue without diplomatic cost.
By continuing to endorse mediation in words while ignoring its erosion in practice, international actors risk becoming passive observers of a deepening crisis. Mediation cannot function as a symbolic gesture deployed for diplomatic convenience. It must be treated as a binding political process.
Without accountability, mediation ceases to be a pathway to peace. It becomes a language used to manage perception while the conflict itself intensifies.
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