More than 30 African leaders kicked off a summit with French President Emmanuel Macron in Kenya on Monday, as Paris sought new deals and partnerships amid signs of fading influence in some of its former colonies on the continent.
The Africa Forward Summit is the first France has organised in an English-speaking nation and follows a series of setbacks in West Africa, where some Francophone leaders have cut back on security and commercial links with their erstwhile colonial ruler.
Seated alongside Kenyan President William Ruto on a panel discussion with young entrepreneurs about technology and artificial intelligence, Macron said Africa and France were equal partners with common objectives.
“A lot of solutions are made in the U.S. or made in China,” he said. “I think we have a common fight … which is to build our strategic autonomy for Europe and Africa. And if we build it together, we will be much stronger.”
Africa’s richest man, the Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote, is attending alongside more than 30 African presidents, deputy presidents and prime ministers, and executives from leading French firms such as TotalEnergies and Orange.
Deals worth more than $1 billion were announced on Sunday during a state visit between Macron and Ruto, including plans by French shipping group CMA CGM to invest 700 million euros ($823 million) to modernise a terminal at the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
Investments in clean energy, AI and other areas are also expected to be announced.
France – which has organised similar events in French-speaking nations since the 1970s – has touted rising trade with African countries, though it has experienced disappointments too.
Last year, Ruto’s government terminated a $1.5 billion highway expansion deal with a consortium led by France’s Vinci SA and handed it to Chinese firms after Kenyan authorities said it saddled them with too much risk.
KENYA WANTS SUMMIT OUTCOMES DISCUSSED AT G7
Kenya hopes to use the summit to attract French investors looking to take advantage of the pan-African free trade area (AfCFTA) and to advance talks on making the global financial system fairer to heavily indebted African countries.
The Kenyan president will attend the G7 summit next month in Evian-les-Bains at the invitation of France, which holds the group’s rotating presidency.
“We believe it’s a good thing if critical outcomes of this meeting … can also be mainstreamed as critical agenda items by the G7,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi told Reuters.
France has traditionally had its closest African ties in its former colonies in the west and centre of the continent but is confronting rising anti-French sentiment.
Coups since 2020 in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger brought to power military officers who expelled French troops and invited in Russian mercenaries. France also handed over control of its last major military facility in Senegal last July after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said French bases were incompatible with the country’s sovereignty.
Macron on Sunday downplayed the absence of some leaders at the summit, noting that several West African heads of state, including Faye, and civil society representatives would be there.
