SA absent as France pivots Africa strategy eastwards

The Africa Forward Summit concluded in Nairobi this week with €23bn (R445bn) in investment pledges, representatives from nearly 30 countries and some of the continent’s most prominent business figures, including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.

South Africa was not among those represented at the head-of-state level, though both Pretoria and Paris insist the absence was a matter of scheduling rather than politics.

President Cyril Ramaphosa did not attend. The minister in the presidency, Maropene Ramokgopa, who also serves as ANC second deputy secretary-general, had been designated as his replacement but also did not travel to Nairobi, held back by ANC obligations, including a meeting of the party’s top seven officials and a national executive committee sitting.

Eleonore Caroit, France’s minister delegate responsible for Francophonie, international partnerships and French nationals abroad, addressed the gap directly, saying South Africa’s absence carried no political meaning and that bilateral relations between the two countries remain solid.

France denied earlier this year that it had excluded Pretoria from the list of non-member countries invited to the G7 summit in June under pressure from Washington.

Questions, nevertheless, persisted given well-documented tensions between South Africa and Western governments over Pretoria’s non-aligned foreign policy, its stance on the Russia-Ukraine war and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

For the first time, France chose to host its flagship Africa gathering outside francophone territory. It’s part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to hold the meeting in Kenya as part of a decade-long agenda to broaden French engagement across the continent, not as a concession to the souring of relations in the West.

Heads of state from former French colonies, including Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Chad, nonetheless made the journey east, lending the gathering a degree of continuity alongside its new direction.

French political, military and commercial influence has receded sharply across West Africa over the past three years, with Paris losing military footholds in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after coups that carried unmistakable anti-French sentiment.

East Africa now represents one of the few remaining frontiers where France believes it can credibly expand its economic footprint, with French companies pursuing opportunities in infrastructure, renewable energy, transport and financial services. Paris is quietly positioning Nairobi as a potential diplomatic anchor for anglophone Africa.

Unlike francophone states where France historically exercised outsized political sway, economies such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania operate in a far more competitive geopolitical environment shaped by the US, China, Gulf states and India.

France is arriving late and without the structural advantages it long enjoyed further west.

• Business Day’s coverage of the Africa Forward Summit was made possible by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.