French president announces billions in African investments at summit focused on partnership

NAIROBI: Calls for mutual respect dominated the Africa Forward Summit on Tuesday as French President Emmanuel Macron announced new investments and said sovereignty will be key in the new partnership that France hopes to build with Africa.

Investments worth €23 billion (around $27 billion) will fund various sectors in Africa, including energy, AI and agriculture, Macron said, adding that €14 billion ($16.4 billion) will come from French companies and €9 billion ($10.5 billion) from African entities.



Macron said the summit marks a financial shift in the relationship between the European nations and African countries, including those that were once French colonies.

Kenyan president William Ruto, who is co-hosting the summit with his French partner, referred to sovereignty eight times in his speech on the summit's final day. He reiterated that the days of European dependency were over for Africa, in favour of mutual respect between cooperating nations.

New partnerships between the African nations and France "must not be built on dependency but on sovereign equality, not on aid or charity but on mutually beneficial investment, and not on extraction or exploitation but on win-win engagements," Ruto said.

The event, which is set to conclude on Tuesday with a declaration expected to be signed by all 30 heads of state and government, comes at the height of a fallout between France and its former colonies, mostly in West Africa.

France has long maintained a colonial policy of economic, political and military sway dubbed Francafrique, which included keeping thousands of troops in the region it controlled.

After years of criticism from leaders and opposition parties in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso over what they described as a demeaning and heavy-handed approach, France has withdrawn most of those troops. It completed the withdrawal of troops from Senegal in July.

Macron said Paris will respect each African country's independence, adding that "sovereignty and autonomy are shared, and your success is our success."

France's new strategy, according to Macron, is based on a shared agenda and the "days of offering assistance are behind us."

"I'd like to focus on co-investment," he said.

Macron hailed a strong show of unity from the African heads of state and governments as "an image of a united continent with a shared agenda."