KOFFI KOUAKOU | Macron’s Kenya summit signals strategic shift

French president Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Nairobi for the inaugural Africa Forward Summit marks far more than another diplomatic gathering between Europe and Africa.

Co-hosted with Kenya’s President William Ruto, the summit brought together more than 30 African leaders, investors, business executives and policymakers under the familiar language of innovation, strategic partnership, green industrialisation and digital transformation.

Yet beneath the polished rhetoric of “equal partnership” lies a deeper geopolitical story: France is attempting a strategic reset in Africa after a decade of setbacks in its traditional Francophone sphere of influence. Nairobi is therefore not accidental. It is symbolic.

Macron’s Nairobi summit represents perhaps the clearest and most ambitious expression yet of France’s long-term strategic pivot toward Anglophone Africa — a recalibration that began quietly in the 1990s, when Paris increasingly courted regional powers such as South Africa and Nigeria. Today, however, the urgency of that pivot has intensified considerably as the old Françafrique model continues to weaken.

For decades, France maintained extraordinary political, military, economic and cultural influence across Francophone Africa. From Dakar to Abidjan, from Libreville to N’Djamena, Paris operated through networks of military bases, political alliances, monetary influence and elite patronage systems.

But that architecture has weakened dramatically.

In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, military governments openly rejected French influence and expelled French troops. Anti-French protests spread across the Sahel, while Russia strategically expanded its footprint through security partnerships and anti-Western messaging. Macron’s administration faces a harsh geopolitical reality: France can no longer rely exclusively on historical colonial networks to maintain influence on the African continent.

Kenya occupies a special geopolitical position for France. Unlike the Sahel states, it does not carry the same depth of anti-French colonial memory. France therefore sees Nairobi as a less politically hostile entry point into a changing Africa.

Beyond diplomacy, Kenya is also strategically attractive because it sits at the intersection of East African trade, Horn of Africa geopolitics, Indian Ocean maritime routes, digital innovation and continental finance.

The Africa Forward Summit placed heavy emphasis on technology, artificial intelligence, climate finance, digital transformation and investment partnerships. France is attempting to reposition itself not merely as a military actor but as a long-term economic and technological partner.

Amid this strategic French recalibration, Ruto’s growing international visibility is equally significant. Whether on climate diplomacy, global financial reform, Haiti stabilisation efforts or continental mediation, he is increasingly being elevated as a globally acceptable African interlocutor.

This is particularly important at a moment when parts of the West are searching for African partners who are globally integrated, investment-oriented and strategically co-operative.

Macron’s African repositioning cannot be separated from the wider geopolitical confrontation between the West and Russia.

France views Russia’s growing influence in West Africa as both a strategic humiliation and a direct challenge to European interests. Moscow has capitalised effectively on anti-French sentiment by presenting itself as an anti-imperialist partner supportive of African sovereignty.

Across parts of the Sahel, that message has resonated powerfully, particularly among younger populations frustrated by decades of foreign military presence without meaningful socioeconomic transformation.

Africa now matters strategically to everyone — especially to the EU and the wider Western alliance system. The danger, however, is it becomes fragmented into competing geopolitical camps.

Some states may align more closely with the West, others with Brics, others with China or Russia, while others pursue transactional balancing strategies. This risks weakening continental cohesion precisely when Africa requires greater collective bargaining power.

The AU therefore faces a historic test: can Africa maintain strategic autonomy amid intensifying great power competition? This is perhaps the defining geopolitical question of the next decade.

Africa must avoid becoming a geopolitical chessboard once again. Whether influence comes from Paris, Washington, Moscow or Beijing, the continent’s long-term interests and future require strategic independence rather than dependency.

Yet Africa also has a real opportunity and should not approach this new geopolitical competition defensively. It should do so strategically.

For the first time in decades, Africa possesses significant leverage. The continent holds strategic and critical minerals essential for the global energy transition, the world’s youngest population, growing consumer markets, strategic maritime corridors and increasing diplomatic relevance.

The real challenge for African leadership is therefore not how to resist external powers entirely, but how to negotiate intelligently with all of them in pursuit of high-yield partnerships that genuinely advance African development and sovereignty.

Macron’s Nairobi summit ultimately reveals something larger than France’s ambitions in Africa.

It reveals that Africa is no longer peripheral to global politics. Africa is becoming central to the emerging multipolar order — and the struggle for influence across Africa may help shape international politics for decades to come.

• Kouakou is a member of the OECD’s foresight expert group, a strategic foresight practitioner, and an analyst of African and Global South geopolitics