Macron Launches East Africa Tour with Egypt Visit, Kenya Business Summit and African Union Talks

French President Emmanuel Macron started a tour of East Africa on 10 May 2026, beginning the three-country trip in Egypt on Saturday. Macron's East Africa tour will also take him to Kenya and Ethiopia. He will cohost a summit in Kenya on Monday and Tuesday that will bring together African leaders and business executives.

The summit is named “Africa Forward”. It will be the first in an Anglophone country attended by Macron since he took office in 2017. Several agreements between French and Kenyan companies are set to be signed during Macron's visit to Kenya.

The French president will wrap up his tour in Addis Ababa on Wednesday. Macron will hold meetings with Ethiopian officials during his visit to Addis Ababa. He will take part in talks at the African Union headquarters on peace and security in Africa.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have seen coups. French forces were expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after years of military operations against armed groups. Al Jazeera reported that the tour is widely seen as a bid by Paris to repair economic and security ties and counter rising anti-French sentiment across parts of Africa.

Macron began his three-country tour with a visit to Egypt. France colonised large parts of West and Central Africa and maintained excessive political and economic influence long after independence. France, once widely accused of supporting unpopular leaders for strategic gain, is no longer the dominant foreign power it once was in Francophone Africa.

Across the continent, there is a growing push for more equal, win-win partnerships, tighter control over natural resources and broader alliances beyond traditional Western partners. Anti-French sentiment has generally grown alongside political instability, military coups and rising competition from other international powers. The sharpest rupture has come in the Sahel region.

In the vacuum, the region’s military rulers have turned to new security partners, particularly Russia. Macron is seeking to reshape France’s Africa policy, replacing traditional influence with what he calls partnerships. He is also pushing for deeper cultural and educational cooperation focused on entrepreneurship, climate and youth engagement.

Such efforts are seen as France’s attempt to reinvent its postcolonial relationship with African states and compete with powers like China and Russia.