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French President Emmanuel Macron urged investment in Africa on Monday as he co-hosted an economic summit in Kenya, after defending European involvement on the continent.
The European leader, speaking at the University of Nairobi, said Africa “needs investment to become more sovereign,” replacing aid with economic opportunities.
Speaking in French, Macron said that previously European chiefs would lecture African leaders on what they needed, but, “this is no longer what Africa needs or wants to hear.”
“That’s just as well, because we, too, no longer have the means, if we’re being honest,” he said.
Ahead of the summit, in an interview with the magazines Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, the French leader said he first strongly condemned colonialism when he came to power in 2017.
But he said the colonial era was not solely to blame for issues still affecting Africa.
“We must not exonerate from all responsibility the seven decades that followed independence,” he added, calling on African leaders to improve governance.
European former colonial powers such as France and the UK remain targets for criticism in Africa but Macron maintained that they were not “the predators of this century.”
“Europe defends the international order, effective multilateralism, the rule of law, free and open trade,” he was quoted as saying.
In contrast, the United States and China were locked in a trade standoff, with no respect for the rules, he added.
On critical minerals and rare earths, China, he said, “operates according to a predatory logic: it does the processing at home” and creates “dependencies with the rest of the world.”
Macron, leading the two-day summit aimed at renewing France’s engagement with Africa after years of strained ties with its former colonies, said Europe was instead promoting “a strategy of autonomy” for both continents.
Central to transforming Africa’s fortunes should be an overhaul of international finance, to set up a system of financial guarantees to bring in private investment, he added.
New era?
France withdrew its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after the military in each of those countries seized power between 2020 and 2023.
Asked about the juntas, Macron said: “I’m convinced that we must let these states and their leaders, even putschists, chart their own course.”
But he defended France’s military presence in the Sahel region, as it had been requested to fight the jihadist threat.
“When our presence was no longer wanted after the coups, we left,” he said. “That wasn’t a humiliation but a logical response to a given situation.”
“A new era is about to start. The Sahel will one day regain normal governance” with democratically elected leaders who “genuinely care about their people,” he added.
Additional sources • AFP
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