EAST AFRICA — French President Emmanuel Macron began a three-country tour of East Africa in Egypt on Saturday, with planned stops in Kenya and Ethiopia. The trip will include cohosting the Africa Forward summit in Kenya on Monday and Tuesday and talks at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa on Wednesday.

The Africa Forward summit will bring together African leaders and business executives. Several agreements between French and Kenyan companies are set to be signed during the visit. The gathering will be the first summit in an Anglophone country attended by Macron since he took office in 2017.

Macron will wrap up the tour in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, where he will meet with Ethiopian officials and take part in talks at the African Union headquarters on peace and security in Africa. The tour comes as Macron seeks to reshape France's Africa policy by replacing traditional influence with what he calls partnerships. He is pushing for deeper cultural and educational cooperation focused on entrepreneurship, climate, and youth engagement.

France colonised large parts of West and Central Africa and maintained political and economic influence in those regions long after independence. France is no longer the dominant foreign power in Francophone Africa that it once was. Across the continent, there is a push for more equal partnerships, tighter control over natural resources, and broader alliances beyond traditional Western partners.

Anti-French sentiment has grown alongside political instability, military coups, and rising competition from other international powers. In the Sahel region, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have experienced coups followed by rapidly deteriorating relations with France. French forces were expelled from the three countries after years of military operations against armed groups. The military rulers in those countries turned to new security partners, particularly Russia.