More than 30 African leaders gathered in Nairobi on Monday for the Africa Forward Summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The summit marks France’s attempt to strengthen economic and political partnerships across Africa at a time when its influence in several former colonies is declining.
French companies will invest more than €1 billion in Kenya, Macron announced at the start of his visit. The summit has the character of a large-scale trade mission, with 140 business delegations travelling alongside the French president.
At the port of Mombasa, French shipping group CMA CGM will invest €700 million to modernise container terminals. Infrastructure investment firm Meridiam will invest €225 million in the expansion of a wind farm in Kenya. Additional investments in clean energy, artificial intelligence and technology partnerships are also expected to follow.
Kenya as a strategic gateway
The Africa Forward Summit is organised annually, alternating between France and Africa. This is the first time the summit is being held in an English-speaking African country instead of a French-speaking one, underlining Macron’s broader ambition to reposition France’s relationship with the continent.
Macron said Africa and France should be regarded as equal partners with shared objectives. During a panel discussion on technology and AI, he announced that €23 billion in investments had been mobilised through the summit, including €14 billion from French companies and €9 billion from African investors.
“A lot of solutions are made in the U.S. or made in China,” Macron said. “I think we have a common fight, which is to build our strategic autonomy for Europe and Africa. If we build it together, we will be much stronger.”
“I want France to stop seeing this continent as a private reserve, where businesspeople supposedly have all rights or guaranteed contracts simply because it is French-speaking Africa,” Macron added. “Sometimes, some even had the feeling that France acted as a kind of insurance policy, guaranteeing outcomes at any cost by making or breaking governments. That era is over.”
Legacy of French influence in Africa
When Macron took office, he pledged to end Françafrique, the deeply rooted network of economic, military and political ties between France and its former colonies. In practice, however, that ambition largely remained theoretical.
Macron acknowledged in his speech that French companies had spent decades “making or breaking governments”. Last month, it emerged that French billionaire and businessman Vincent Bolloré is facing prosecution over allegations that concessions were granted in exchange for services provided to presidential candidates in Togo and Guinea in 2010.
Companies such as TotalEnergies and Orange continue to maintain extensive interests across the continent. Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote also attended the summit alongside executives from leading French corporations.
France has organised similar summits in French-speaking African countries since the 1970s, but recent years have exposed growing tensions. Several former colonies, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, have distanced themselves from France and expelled French military forces that had been deployed against Islamist jihadist groups.
Partnerships based on equality
Kenyan President William Ruto praised Macron for attempting to recalibrate France’s relationship with Africa and stressed the need for partnerships based on equality rather than dependency.
“We need to move beyond aid and loans and focus more on investments and on what Africa has to offer,” Ruto said. “We have valuable assets. We have a young population, natural resources and energy sources. These resources have real value.”
Despite the renewed investment push, France has also experienced commercial setbacks in Kenya. Last year, Ruto’s government cancelled a $1.5 billion highway expansion agreement involving French construction company Vinci SA and instead awarded the project to Chinese firms, arguing that the original deal exposed Kenya to excessive financial risks.
Ahead of the summit, Macron went for a run through Nairobi accompanied by Kenyan marathon runner and former world record holder Eliud Kipchoge. Research by French polling agency Ipsos showed that the French president remains significantly more popular in English-speaking African countries than in French-speaking regions.
Security and geopolitical ambitions
Security issues are also being discussed on the sidelines of the summit. France is advocating for the addition of 2 permanent African members to the United Nations Security Council as part of a broader effort to deepen geopolitical cooperation with African nations.
