French president (Macron) visit to Kenya & neocolonialism
This weekend I saw online that the Africa Forward Summit is happening in Kenya. We'll be hosting the French president together with some other African presidents to discuss diplomatic relationships between African countries and France.
At first, it looked like a chance for opportunity. But then I looked at the comment sections on posts announcing Macron's arrival. There was a lot of hate and references to how we, East Africans (mainly Kenya) are being dumb for entertaining France when West Africans have actually been kicking French power out of their countries.
So I decided to go deeper and understand the hate. Here's what I learned about negative French influence in West Africa:
Françafrique: A complex, shadowy network of political, economic, and military ties that France maintained with its former African colonies after independence. Involves military interventionism, economic control via the CFA Franc, and personal networks designed to protect French interests.
Monetary Dependency (CFA Franc): Former French colonies forced to use the CFA Franc, which limits monetary sovereignty and requires them to deposit foreign exchange reserves into the French Treasury.
Military Interference: France maintaining military bases in former colonies and intervening to support authoritarian leaders or influence coups.
Economic Exploitation (this one hurt me the most 💔): French multinational companies dominating key sectors, hindering local development, and exploiting natural resources. These countries control resource extraction of minerals like gold and uranium, but the wealth goes to France. The source countries are left with nothing, just environmental damage and polluted communities that don't even benefit from their own minerals. All enabled by manipulative extractive trade policies.
Political Puppeteering: France frequently interfering in elections and maintaining close relationships with corrupt, unpopular regimes.
All of this comes together in one word:
Neocolonialism: where superpower countries maintain indirect control over developing nations through economic, political, cultural, or other pressures.
Then I looked further, specifically at Kenya, as a former British colony. Here's what I found:
The IMF & World Bank Trap (Financial Neocolonialism): In the 80s and 90s, the IMF and World Bank forced Kenya to privatize state assets and cut public services as conditions for loans. The World Bank is Kenya's biggest external creditor. We owe so much to so many. Also, the Eurobond pressure; I remember hearing about the Eurobond case back in primary school, where the money got embezzled by political leaders. Now we are the ones scrambling to pay back that money because the loan is maturing soon. The government responds with austerity measures: high taxes, reduced subsidies.
Military Troops: France has already sent 800 military troops to Kenya. Meanwhile, we already have US troops at Camp Simba, which has exclusive rights for drone strikes and counter-terrorism operations—threatening to compromise Kenya's sovereignty by dragging us into wars.
Corporate & Extractive Exploitation: Transparency International reports indicate that 65% of extractive companies (mining gold, titanium) in Kenya are registered in offshore tax havens. This means they avoid paying billions in Kenyan taxes 😖. Meanwhile, we're out here emptying our pockets because of these same taxes.
Asset Privatisation: I just learned that Kenya Pipeline was sold. And last year, there was all that back-and-forth about wanting to lease JKIA to India's Adani Group.
Telecoms: I also witnessed this last year—15% of Safaricom was sold to Vodacom (a South African/UK giant), highly undervaluing Kenya's most successful company.
NGL, digging into all this and finding it out was kinda depressing.
Then there's the brain drain: Kenya spends a lot of money educating its own people (through primary school, high school, university, subsidizing fees) until they become professionals. But due to the difficult job market, most of these people leave the country to work elsewhere. Kenya loses that investment.