Keypoints:
- France is pivoting from Francophone West Africa to East Africa
- Kenya has emerged as Paris’s new strategic anchor partner
- Macron’s $23bn summit push reflects economic survival as much as diplomacy
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron is attempting the most ambitious reset of France’s Africa policy in decades. But the $23bn investment pledges announced at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi this week are not merely about development finance or trade. They represent France’s attempt to rebuild influence after the collapse of its traditional post-colonial alliances across parts of West and Central Africa.
According to Bloomberg reporting, Macron’s Nairobi summit reflects France’s widening strategic shift away from its traditional Francophone strongholds and towards new partnerships in East Africa.
The symbolism was unmistakable. Kenya became the first Anglophone African state to host a France-Africa summit, breaking with a long tradition rooted in Paris’s post-colonial sphere. That alone reveals how dramatically France’s African posture has changed since military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon shattered its old networks of influence.
The deeper context is this: France is no longer acting from a position of dominance in Africa. France is repositioning from weakness after losing military footholds and political leverage across several former allies.
France has withdrawn or reduced military deployments in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad over the past four years as anti-French sentiment and military-led governments reshaped the regional security landscape.
As Africa Briefing previously reported in its analysis of France’s shift towards Kenya after setbacks in the Sahel, Paris has increasingly looked eastward as hostility towards French influence deepens across parts of West Africa.
From ‘Françafrique’ to pragmatic partnerships
For decades, France relied on a system often described as ‘Françafrique’ — a web of military alliances, political patronage, currency arrangements and elite relationships that preserved Paris’s influence across former colonies.
That architecture has steadily collapsed.
The 2023 coup in Gabon was especially damaging because Libreville had long been viewed as one of France’s most dependable African partners. Analysts described the coup as leaving France’s Africa strategy ‘in tatters’, reflecting how rapidly Paris was losing trusted allies.
The removal of the Bongo dynasty also highlighted a wider African political shift: younger populations increasingly associated France with entrenched elites, military dependency and economic imbalance rather than partnership.
Anti-French sentiment then accelerated across the Sahel, where juntas expelled French troops and increasingly embraced Russia as an alternative security partner.
Macron’s response has been to publicly abandon much of the old paternalistic language. At the Nairobi summit, both Macron and Kenyan President William Ruto repeatedly emphasised sovereignty, mutual respect and equal partnership.
But rhetoric alone cannot obscure the strategic recalculation underway.
Why Kenya matters now
Kenya has emerged as the centrepiece of France’s African pivot.
Unlike the military-led Sahel states, Kenya offers relative institutional stability, a growing technology ecosystem, access to East African markets and strategic Indian Ocean positioning. It also offers France greater access to emerging Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade corridors that are becoming increasingly important to global commerce and maritime security.
The recent France-Kenya defence agreement reflects this shift. The deal expands military cooperation, intelligence-sharing and troop access while deepening French engagement in maritime security and counterterrorism.
This is not accidental timing.
As France loses military footholds in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, East Africa offers Paris a chance to preserve strategic relevance on the continent without relying on collapsing post-colonial structures.
France’s eastward pivot is no longer subtle. Paris is increasingly treating East Africa as the centrepiece of its new continental strategy as its old Sahel alliances unravel.
The Nairobi summit reinforced that repositioning. Macron’s €23bn investment package focused heavily on infrastructure, clean energy, logistics and technology rather than the traditional security-heavy approach that previously defined France’s African engagement.
French firms also risk losing influence over strategic energy, mining and logistics markets increasingly contested by Chinese, Turkish and Gulf investors across Africa.
Debt, diplomacy and strategic competition
The summit also exposed another major geopolitical reality: African governments increasingly want investment without the punitive financial conditions often associated with global lending systems.
That debate aligns with broader continental frustration over rising borrowing costs and sovereign debt pressures. Africa Briefing recently examined this dynamic in its report on Africa’s pushback against the so-called ‘debt risk tax’ imposed by international financial markets.
African governments are also increasingly leveraging competition between France, China, Russia, Turkey and Gulf states to negotiate more flexible partnerships, diversify security cooperation and secure infrastructure financing on more favourable terms.
France appears increasingly aware that its future relevance in Africa will depend less on military influence and more on whether it can position itself as a credible economic and technological partner.
Russia and China changed the equation
France’s Africa recalibration cannot be understood without recognising the role of geopolitical competition.
Since 2022, Paris has struggled to counter expanding Russian influence across the Sahel, where Moscow-linked security partnerships gained traction among military governments hostile to Western pressure. Meanwhile, China continues consolidating economic influence through infrastructure financing, trade and mineral access across the continent.
In Gabon, for example, China rapidly strengthened economic ties even as French influence weakened after the coup.
France now appears to understand that military deployments alone no longer secure influence in Africa. Economic partnerships, infrastructure finance, technology cooperation and diplomatic flexibility increasingly define the new competition.
That explains why Macron’s Nairobi summit centred less on aid and more on investment mobilisation.
Still, France’s repositioning remains fragile. Many African observers remain sceptical that Paris has genuinely moved beyond its old Africa doctrine. Critics argue that defence agreements and strategic investments still primarily serve French geopolitical interests.
What is clear, however, is that Macron’s Nairobi summit marks the clearest acknowledgment yet that the old model is over.
France is no longer defending an African order it once dominated.
It is competing to remain relevant within a new one.
