Macron and the Sex Thieves: Rumour and Disinformation in Africa, by Julien Bonhomme – 10 June 2025

From Books&Ideas

A rumour is circulating in some African countries: the French state is organising penis thefts to offset declining fertility. The rumour, spread by Russian propaganda, has become fake news.

Sex thieves again? On October 28, a Malian news website published an article about mysterious disappearances of male genitalia in the Central African Republic. The rumour, in fact, is not new, as I have already demonstrated in a book]. It first appeared in Nigeria in the 1970s, then spread to West and Central Africa in the 1990s. Since then, it has resurfaced from time to time, provoking accusations and violence in its wake. The scenario is always the same: “sex theft” occurs during an ordinary encounter between two people in the street. It’s a handshake or a simple brush that leads to the genitals of the “victim” – invariably male – shrinking or even disappearing altogether. The alleged “thief” is also usually a man, usually a stranger and frequently foreign, whether from another African country or ethnic group. In Nigeria, for example, it is often the Hausa from the north of the country who are accused, while elsewhere in West Africa, Nigerians are more generally suspected. Sex theft, which represents a threat of dispossession by outsiders, bears more than a passing resemblance to a whole host of organ theft rumours circulating elsewhere in the world, from Brazil to Madagascar, from the Andes to France.

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Julien Bonhomme is an anthropologist and director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is interested in the power of speech in society. Based on fieldwork in Gabon and Senegal, his research focuses on religious speech, the transnational circulation of rumours and the production and reception of journalistic information. He is the author of Le Miroir et le Crâne. Parcours initiatique du Bwete Misoko (CNRS éditions, 2006); Les Voleurs de sexe. Anthropologie d’une rumeur africaine (Seuil, 2009); L’offrande de la mort. Une rumeur au Sénégal (CNRS éditions, 2017 – with Julien Bondaz); Le Champion du quartier. Se faire un nom dans la lutte sénégalaise (Mimésis éditions, 2022).

Translated by Tamsin Symons

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