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\n France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) is welcomed by Kenya’s President William Ruto (R) as he arrives ahead of the Africa Forward summit in Nairobi on May 11, 2026. | AFP photo <\/p>\n
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\n France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) is welcomed by Kenya’s President William Ruto (R) as he arrives ahead of the Africa Forward summit in Nairobi on May 11, 2026. | AFP photo
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French president Emmanuel Macron defended European involvement in Africa and urged investment in the continent on Monday as he co-hosted an economic summit in Kenya.<\/p>\n
The European leader, speaking at the University of Nairobi, said Africa \u2018needs investment to become more sovereign\u2019, replacing aid with economic opportunities.<\/p>\n
Speaking in French, Macron said that previously European chiefs would lecture African leaders on what they needed, but, \u2018this is no longer what Africa needs or wants to hear\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018That\u2019s just as well, because we, too, no longer have the means, if we\u2019re being honest,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But he said the colonial era was not solely to blame for issues still affecting Africa.<\/p>\n
\u2018We must not exonerate from all responsibility the seven decades that followed independence,\u2019 he added, calling on African leaders to improve governance.<\/p>\n
European former colonial powers such as France and the UK remain targets for criticism in Africa but Macron maintained that they were not \u2018the predators of this century\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018Europe defends the international order, effective multilateralism, the rule of law, free and open trade,\u2019 he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the United States and China were locked in a trade standoff, with no respect for the rules, he added.<\/p>\n
On critical minerals and rare earths, China, he said, \u2018operates according to a predatory logic: it does the processing at home\u2019 and creates \u2018dependencies with the rest of the world\u2019.<\/p>\n
Macron, leading the two-day summit aimed at renewing France\u2019s engagement with Africa after years of strained ties with its former colonies, said Europe was instead promoting \u2018a strategy of autonomy\u2019 for both continents.<\/p>\n
Central to transforming Africa\u2019s fortunes should be an overhaul of international finance, to set up a system of financial guarantees to bring in private investment, he added.<\/p>\n
France withdrew its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after the military in each of those countries seized power between 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n
Asked about the juntas, Macron said: \u2018I\u2019m convinced that we must let these states and their leaders, even putschists, chart their own course.\u2019<\/p>\n
But he defended France\u2019s military presence in the Sahel region, as it had been requested to fight the jihadist threat.<\/p>\n
\u2018When our presence was no longer wanted after the coups, we left,\u2019 he said. \u2018That wasn\u2019t a humiliation but a logical response to a given situation.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018A new era is about to start. The Sahel will one day regain normal governance\u2019 with democratically elected leaders who \u2018genuinely care about their people\u2019, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) is welcomed by Kenya’s President William Ruto (R) as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4926,4925,4923,4920,4922,4919,5,4924,4921,4917,4918],"class_list":{"0":"post-13543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-bangla-online-news","9":"tag-bangladesh-latest-news","10":"tag-bangladesh-news","11":"tag-bangladesh-newspaper","12":"tag-bangladeshi-newspapers","13":"tag-daily-new-age","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-latest-bangladesh-news","16":"tag-most-popular-outspoken-english-daily-newpaper-in-bangladesh","17":"tag-new-age","18":"tag-the-new-age"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}