Macron seeks to recast France-Africa ties with $27bn push

The France-Africa summit has mobilised billions of euros in investment deals, which President Emmanuel Macron said showed a pivot away from financial aid to investment for the continent.

Investors pledged €23 billion ($27 billion) at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, marking the event’s first time in an English-speaking country.

“This is a big first,” Macron said of the investment pledges. “I’m not offering assistance, those days are behind us.”

Having lost influence in several former colonies after a turbulent record in West Africa, Macron is seeking to reset France’s Africa strategy by deepening ties with English-speaking countries along the continent’s east coast.

The summit brought together dozens heads of state, including from French-speaking nations such as Senegal, Chad, Guinea and Ivory Coast, and about 7,000 delegates representing major French and African companies.

“Let’s take a leap together, this is not a top-down agenda from Europe to Africa,” Macron said. “It’s an equal partnership.”

Kenyan President William Ruto, who co-hosted the summit, has been invited to next month’s Group of Seven gathering in Évian-les-Bains to discuss the outcomes of the meeting, Macron said.

Ruto is pushing for a shake-up of the global financial system, arguing that Africa’s 1.6 billion people face unfair treatment as countries grapple with elevated borrowing costs, limited access to concessional finance and distorted risk perceptions.

“The era in which Africa’s development was principally framed through aid, dependency, and unsustainable borrowing must give way to a new paradigm grounded in investment, innovation, domestic resource mobilization, and strategic partnerships built on sovereign equality and mutual benefit,” he said.

Macron agreed that there was a “need to rethink our north-south relationship,” saying France would push for better African representation on international financial institutions and the United Nations Security Council.

“If we want to be beside you, it means we have better representation for Africa in international institutions,” he said.

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