French President Emmanuel Macron and more than 30 African leaders \u200bkicked off a summit in Kenya, on Monday aimed at diversifying Paris\u2019 partnerships on the continent \u200cand clinching new investment deals.<\/p>\n
The Africa Forward Summit is the first that France has organised in an English-speaking nation since it began holding such events in the 1970s, and follows a series of setbacks in former colonies in West Africa that have moved to \u200breduce French influence.<\/p>\n
The convention opened with a meeting of business executives attended by Macron and Kenyan \u200bPresident William Ruto at the University of Nairobi. In addition to more than 30 African \u2060presidents, deputy presidents and prime ministers, attendees included executives from leading French firms such as TotalEnergies and Orange \u200band Africa\u2019s richest man, the Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote.<\/p>\n
During a state visit on Sunday, Macron announced that French \u200bshipping group CMA CGM planned to invest \u20ac700m ($823m) to modernise a terminal at the Kenyan port of Mombasa.<\/p>\n
Kenya hopes to use the summit to attract French investors looking to take advantage of the \u200bpan-African free trade area (AfCFTA), which is being rolled out across the continent.<\/p>\n
Ruto also wants to advance talks on \u200bmaking the global financial system fairer to heavily indebted African countries, a campaign France has pledged to support. The Kenyan president will \u200cattend \u2060the G7 summit next month in Evian-les-Bains at the invitation of France, which holds the group\u2019s rotating presidency.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe it\u2019s a good thing if critical outcomes of this meeting can also be mainstreamed as critical agenda items by the G7,\u201d Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi told Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n France has traditionally had its closest African ties in \u200bits former colonies in the \u200bwest and centre of \u2060the continent but is confronting rising anti-French sentiment. Coups since 2020 in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger brought to power military officers who expelled French troops and invited in \u200bRussian mercenaries. France also handed over control of its last major military facility \u200bin Senegal last \u2060July after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, said French bases were incompatible with the country\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n At a news conference with Ruto on Sunday, Macron downplayed the absence of some leaders at the summit. He noted that several West \u2060African heads \u200bof state, including Faye, would be there and said France \u200bwas still seeking connections with people from those countries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34147,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34213","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Kenya hopes to use the summit to attract French investors looking to take advantage of the \u200bpan-African free trade area","published_date":"","news_description":"Kenya hopes to use the summit to attract French investors looking to take advantage of the \u200bpan-African free trade area","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34226,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34213\/revisions\/34226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}