Author: Congo Times

A Tradition of Excellence at the Heart of Brazzaville The midday sun of 14 July lent a ceremonial glow to the parade ground of Brazzaville’s École Militaire Préparatoire Général Leclerc, where 428 cadets, spotless in khaki and scarlet, heard their names proclaimed against the backdrop of a 100 percent success rate. The school’s average mark of 18.12 out of 20 comfortably surpassed last year’s already formidable performance, a consistency that has become almost expected within this storied institution founded in 1936 and revitalised in 2007 under President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s defence modernisation strategy (Congolese Ministry of Defence communiqué, 2025). Metrics…

An Encouraging Statistical Upswing in 2025 The definitive results of the June 2025 technical and professional baccalaureate have injected a cautious optimism into Congo-Brazzaville’s educational landscape. According to figures released by the national board of examinations, 7 681 of the 15 843 candidates who sat for the assessment obtained their diploma, lifting the success rate to 48.48 percent, a leap of more than five percentage points compared with the previous session’s 43 percent. While still shy of the symbolic 50 percent threshold, the progression is read in Brazzaville as a concrete sign that the reforms launched after the 2022 sectoral…

A Golden Milestone for Parliamentary Multilateralism The gilded chandeliers of the French National Assembly offered a fitting backdrop to a session that carried both ceremonial weight and diplomatic urgency. Celebrating five decades of existence, the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie welcomed 84 national and regional delegations for a deliberation that extended far beyond questions of protocol. The attendance figure—over two hundred parliamentarians—underscored the organisation’s evolution from a cultural initiative of the early 1970s into a fully-fledged platform where geopolitical trajectories are tested and occasionally recalibrated. Speakers alternated between French and a studied multilingualism, signalling a recognition that the promotion of…

Brazzaville Prepares a Pan-African Crescendo In a city already renowned for its role in Central African mediation, Brazzaville now fine-tunes a different register of influence. The twelfth edition of the Pan-African Music Festival, scheduled from 19 to 26 July, is expected to gather delegations from more than forty states according to the festival secretariat. Rehearsals at the Sony Labou Tansi Cultural Centre reveal an atmosphere equal parts discipline and exhilaration. Franco-Congolese choreographer Gervais Tomadiatounga orchestrates a forty-minute tableau designed to mirror the continent’s rhythmic diversity, from the maringa cadences of Sierra Leone to Congolese rumba, recently inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative…

Civil Platforms Harmonise Voices Ahead of 2026 Three years before voters cast their ballots, a mosaic of civic organisations gathered under the Coordination nationale des réseaux et associations pour la gouvernance démocratique et électorale, known by its French acronym Coraged, to evaluate lessons from past cycles and outline mitigative strategies for 2026. Convened in Brazzaville and steered by Céphas Germain Ewangui, secretary-permanent of the Consultative Council of Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organisations, the assembly echoed a unifying call: political actors should regard elections as a civic festival rather than a zero-sum contest. The tone was conciliatory yet firm, emphasising that…

Brazzaville Confirms July 2025 Dates Amid Budgetary Prudence In the wood-panelled press room of the Ministry of Cultural, Tourism, Artistic and Leisure Industries, Minister Marie-France Hélène Lydie Pongault ended weeks of speculation by announcing that the twelfth edition of the Pan-African Music Festival will unfold from 19 to 26 July 2025. Her declaration, delivered with measured confidence, made two points unmistakably clear: the festival will indeed take place and it will do so in a deliberately streamlined form. The opening ceremony, traditionally staged in the exuberant setting of Brazzaville’s national stadium, is migrating to the more intimate Palais des Congrès.…

Francophone Diplomacy as a Convergence Platform The ornate Salle Lamartine, temporarily transformed into a hub of Francophone diplomacy, offered a symbolically dense backdrop for the dialogue between Isidore Mvouba and Yaël Braun-Pivet. Both Speakers framed their encounter as a natural extension of the shared linguistic and cultural space curated by the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, whose golden-jubilee session convened legislators from five continents (APF communique, July 2024). In private remarks later relayed to journalists, Mvouba described the APF as a “strategic amplifier of soft-power synergies” uniting Brazzaville and Paris. Braun-Pivet echoed the sentiment, arguing that robust parliamentary channels can…

Diplomatic Temperature Rises in Brazzaville The usually measured cadence of Brazzaville’s political scene quickened after Jean-Jacques Serge Yhombi Opango, head of the Rassemblement pour la Démocratie et le Développement, asserted on an international television outlet that members of the governing Parti Congolais du Travail—and even their descendants—could one day face a tribunal comparable to Nuremberg. The PCT reacted within forty-eight hours on the public broadcaster, labelling the comments “hate-laden and incendiary,” and cautioning against what it perceives as an attempt to erode institutions patiently consolidated since the early 2000s. Seasoned observers in the diplomatic community note that political polemics are…

A Shock Wave in the Palais-Bourbon The publication by Vice-President Nadège Abomangoli of a vitriolic letter that questioned her legitimacy to sit at the rostrum of the National Assembly sent an unmistakable tremor through the French political establishment. The timing was striking. Paris was hosting the semicentennial session of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, a forum meant to display the linguistic fraternity of 88 legislatures, when the xenophobic invective surfaced. In a few stark sentences the anonymous author dismissed the Congolese-born deputy as “an error of casting” and demanded that a dissolution of Parliament rid France of her presence.…

Heritage Clubs at an Inflection Point In the dense tapestry of Central African football, few names resonate as strongly as Diables-Noirs of Brazzaville, AC Léopards of Dolisie and Club Athlétique Renaissance Aiglon (CARA). Each carries a lineage that predates Congo-Brazzaville’s membership of the African Union and collectively they have supplied the national team with more than a third of its capped players since 1990 (Congo Football Federation annual report, 2024). Their current convergence of organisational crises therefore constitutes more than an internal reckoning: it is a moment that could recalibrate the country’s sporting diplomacy. The Diables-Noirs: Between Myth and Managerial…