France will aim to renew ties with Africa and build “balanced partnerships” that are beneficial to the continent, the country’s top diplomat Stephane Sejourne said on Saturday.
Russia and China are becoming more influential on the continent, and relations between France and some of its former colonies in Africa have deteriorated as a result.
Sejourne, who was appointed in January, landed in Kenya on Saturday to start his first trip to Africa. He will then go to Rwanda and Ivory Coast.
“France’s vocation will be to renew and build balanced, mutually respectful partnerships with African countries, for the benefit of all countries,” he said at a press briefing alongside his Kenyan counterpart Musalia Mudavadi.
“That’s what our roadmap is all about diversifying these partnerships and making them beneficial for the countries in which we are going to invest.”
Sejourne said Africa was a “priority” of French foreign policy because the “continent is on the way to becoming a cultural, economic and diplomatic power… that will count in the world’s balance”.
In Kenya, an East African economic powerhouse, France has strengthened its commercial presence, with the number of French companies operating in the country almost tripling from 50 to 140 in a decade.
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But a huge trade imbalance in favour of the European nation has cast a shadow on their relations.
“It is a work in progress.
“The process of us addressing the trade imbalance requires consistent programmes and join efforts like we are doing,” he said, adding that French companies had provided 34,000 direct jobs in Kenya.
The two ministers declared that they had reached a consensus on areas of cooperation, such as transportation infrastructure and sports.
Additionally, in order to support less developed nations’ clean development and adaptation to the escalating effects of climate change, they demanded that the global climate financing framework be reformed.
The two nations, along with Barbados, formed a coalition in December at COP28 to unite nations hoping to establish an international tax within two years that would raise billions of dollars to aid developing nations in combating climate change.
Sejourne will be in Rwanda for the 30th anniversary of the genocide that killed 800,000 people, primarily moderate Hutus but also members of the Tutsi minority.
AFP