Certain relationships require special attention. On Thursday, November 28 and Friday, November 29, in Paris, the president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, will be received on a state visit – the highest protocol – by Emmanuel Macron. For the French president, Nigeria is above all a personal story, which began in 2002, when, as a student at the National School of Administration, he did an internship at the French embassy in Abuja.
Twenty-two years later, before the arrival of his Nigerian counterpart in Paris, Emmanuel Macron’s entourage easily remembers that his last visit to Nigeria, in July 2018, remains one of his most memorable memories on the African continent. With his shirt sleeves rolled up and in an electric atmosphere, the French president spent an evening at the legendary New Afrika Shrine concert hall, created by the father of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti, in Lagos.
His teams imagined that the sequence embodied the rupture he intended to introduce in terms of African politics when he came to power in 2017. His ambition? Promote the development of economic, cultural and even sports collaborations, outside the historic center of Paris, in French-speaking Africa.
HE “software change” promised seems, seven years later, to have little convinced Paris’s African partners. On the economic front, while the volume of trade has increased, France’s market shares on the continent have fallen, from 5.5% in 2017 to almost 3.2% in 2023, according to the French Ministry of Economy. against Chinese, Russian and Turkish competitors. on the offensive. HE “dozens of Airbuses” that some diplomats imagined selling to Kenya or Nigeria were never ordered.
Rich in gas and oil.
Expelled from the Sahel by the junta that has reoriented itself towards Russia and in a delicate position in other French-speaking African countries, France continues to look for privileged partners in English- and Portuguese-speaking Africa, in countries without French responsibilities. colonial and market suppliers for French companies. To mark this change of horizon, a symbol: in 2026, the next Africa-France summit will not be held in France or in a French-speaking African country, but in Kenya.
In this logic of opening, Emmanuel Macron is betting a lot on Nigeria. With more than 220 million citizens, Africa’s most populous country, rich in gas and oil, is the continent’s fourth largest economy. Enough to turn it into an emerging power, courted by many countries.
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