France is seeking to reset its relationship with Africa through Kenya and the wider Anglophone African bloc, signalling a shift away from the military- and aid-driven approach that defined its engagement with Francophone Africa.
Paris has indicated it is now pursuing a strategy centred on investment, technology, education and private-sector partnerships as it seeks to rebuild influence across the continent.
The shift takes centre stage on Monday when Kenya and France co-host the inaugural Africa Summit in Nairobi, bringing together about 30 heads of state and government, alongside more than 1,500 business leaders, investors, entrepreneurs and financiers from Africa and France.
Both Nairobi and Paris have billed the summit as a new chapter in Africa-France relations.
The summit, to be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan President William Ruto, comes at a delicate moment for Paris as it grapples with declining political and military influence in parts of West and Central Africa, where anti-French sentiment has grown in recent years.
France has suffered a series of setbacks across the Sahel region, including the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger following military coups and worsening diplomatic relations.
The reversals have forced Paris to rethink its Africa strategy at a time when many African countries are increasingly demanding partnerships built around trade, investment, jobs and technology transfer rather than security arrangements and historical loyalties.
Against that backdrop, Kenya has emerged as a key anchor in France’s new Africa policy.
The choice of Nairobi to host the summit — the first France-Africa summit to be co-chaired with an English-speaking African country — signals Paris’ growing focus on East Africa as it seeks to expand its partnerships beyond its traditional Francophone sphere of influence.
The evolving relationship between Nairobi and Paris is underpinned by growing trade, development financing and scientific cooperation.
France is Kenya’s third-largest bilateral lender after China and Japan, with outstanding loans amounting to $786.76 million (about Sh101.65 billion) as of December 2025, according to National Treasury data.
The financing, largely channelled through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Proparco, France’s private-sector financing arm, spans energy, urban development, water, transport, agriculture and higher education projects across Kenya.
In the energy sector, French-backed funding is supporting solar-powered mini-grid projects in counties including Turkana, Kisii and Busia between 2018 and 2028, as well as power infrastructure upgrades in Nairobi.
Paris has also expanded its footprint in Kenya’s urban development agenda through projects aimed at improving infrastructure and services in informal settlements such as Kahawa and Soweto in Kayole.
Other projects include support for the Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project and the Kisumu Urban Project, which focuses on upgrading roads, schools and hospital infrastructure.
French financing is also visible in Kenya’s water and sanitation sector through projects such as the Nairobi Northern Collector Tunnel bulk water supply system and the Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation initiative aimed at rehabilitating and expanding water pipeline networks in Kisumu.
In agriculture and forestry, France is supporting rehabilitation of roads in arid and semi-arid regions covering parts of Meru, Isiolo and Laikipia, alongside environmental restoration programmes in the Aberdare and Mau forests.
The relationship is increasingly extending beyond sovereign financing into private-sector investments and innovation partnerships.
Through Proparco, France has backed lending programmes with Equity Bank aimed at supporting Kenyan small and medium-sized enterprises, while also financing infrastructure development at the University of Nairobi’s Engineering and Science Hub.
The two-day summit’s strong focus on business and technology reflects this broader shift in France’s Africa engagement.
Unlike earlier France-Africa summits that were largely state-driven and security-focused, the Nairobi meeting is designed around investment, entrepreneurship and innovation.
Organisers say more than 1,500 economic stakeholders — including investors, startups, business executives and financiers — will attend the summit, whose agenda includes artificial intelligence, digital transformation, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, infrastructure financing, healthcare systems and green industrialisation.
“Our priority is clear: to step up investments and strengthen our cooperation programmes in healthcare, education, food, digital technology, energy and infrastructures,” President Macron said ahead of the summit.
“We are making a strategic choice in ensuring the private sector is the driving force behind this new momentum.”
Kenya, meanwhile, is using the summit to reinforce Nairobi’s growing status as a diplomatic, financial and technology hub amid intensifying global competition for influence across Africa.
President Ruto is positioning Kenya as a gateway to East Africa’s fast-growing economies and as a continental centre for green energy, digital innovation and financial technology.
“Africa is no longer content with aspiration alone,” President Ruto said ahead of the summit.
“We are advancing with clarity and resolve, shifting from dialogue to delivery, from commitments to implementation, and from potential to performance.”
The Kenya-France partnership has also expanded steadily through diplomacy, education and scientific cooperation.
President Macron made a state visit to Kenya in March 2019, while several French ministers responsible for foreign affairs, trade, development and ecological transition have visited Nairobi over the past decade.
Kenyan leaders have also strengthened ties with Paris through a series of official visits. Former President Uhuru Kenyatta visited France in 2020 and attended the Paris Peace Forum in 2018, while President Ruto made an official visit to France in January 2023 and later attended the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris.
