A year before the end of his second and final term at the Elysee, French President Emmanuel Macron went on an African tour that took him from Alexandria to Addis Ababa, by way of Nairobi, where the "Africa Forward" summit convened. This time, however, strategic perspectives broke with those that had long defined French-African summits and relations. France’s customary approach had drawn criticism from both African civilian and military elites and led many countries to sever their ties with France militarily, economically, and even linguistically.
I recently hosted a number of international officials at a conference I convened in Fez, among them Miguel Angel Moratinos, the United Nations High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations; Benita Ferrero-Waldner, former European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy and former Austrian foreign minister; and Josep Borrell, former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and former President of the European Parliament. After our discussions, I was convinced that the European states had finally understood how the failure of their relations with Africa stemmed from their arrogance and prioritizing their own interests at the expense of African nations. They have also realized that returning to the continent would entail building relations on the basis of equality and ensuring economic development in a "win-win" framework. Indeed, current forecasts project that, by 2050, Africa will be home to a quarter of the world's population and to a third by 2075. Many chapters of this century's history will be written in Africa.
Seen in this light, we can understand the new direction taken by the French president at the "Africa Forward" summit in Nairobi. It reflects his desire to reinvent France's relationship with the African continent on the basis of balanced and equitable partnership, correct the mistakes of the past, and reverse the decline of French influence in Africa in favor of other powers such as Russia and China. Hostility to France has intensified to an unprecedented degree in recent years, and many Africans have grown weary of France's lack of "humility and responsibility." France long viewed them as unworthy of equality and therefore believed it had the right to dictate the terms of cooperation and place its own interests above theirs.
France and Europe have come to understand that Africa has changed and that its civilian and military elites have changed. These are elites who did not live through the colonial era nor study in French or European schools and universities. Many of them graduated from American, Canadian, Moroccan, Russian, or Chinese institutions. Some officials held senior positions there before entering public life in their countries. These elites have begun to recognize the imbalance in African-European relations and have increasingly sought new partnerships and alliances- first with Russia, which has significantly strengthened its presence on the continent, and then with China, which has established new Silk Roads. Chinese President Xi Jinping has succeeded in persuading many African countries to embrace the contemporary iteration of this economic and trade corridor as the Chinese reshape the African and global economic map at every level.
The outcomes of the African-French summit have, moreover, begun to mirror the approaches of China and "Trump's America" to multilateral relations. Gone are the references to values, human rights, and democracy. France has thus been compelled to transform. No longer a state with a so-called civilizing mission seeking to export its historical model, it is now a state seeking equality across the board.
We know that France has always sought to export its system, claiming that success can only be achieved through adopting not only its intellectual, social, and cultural model but also its economic and political one. By contrast, as long as its territory and sovereign interests remain untouched, China has long based its foreign policy on non-interference and on the principle that any economic success achieved should be framed not in terms of "friend versus foe" but a "win-win" formula.
The blame, however, should not always be placed on others. Economic integration among African states remains regrettably limited. Africa's share of global trade does not exceed 3 percent, and intra-African trade accounts for only 16 percent of total African trade, compared with 60 percent in Europe and 50 percent in Asia. This is the case despite the fact that Africa is a vast, resource-rich continent with 40 percent of the world's raw materials and 30 percent of its strategic minerals; it also has enormous potential in energy, water, agricultural, and biological resources.
Changing these realities requires investment in processing Africa's natural wealth and local added-value continent-wide: creating regional value chains, encouraging industrialization, generating employment, and strengthening regional and subregional integration.
