France is Eyeing Kenya

What Emmanuel Macron is demonstrating in Nairobi is not “economic cooperation”, but the familiar arrogance of imperial management dressed in diplomatic language. Behind the polished speeches and investment forums lies the same colonial logic that Europe has deployed against Africa for centuries.

As always, a parade of African rulers gathered around him in Nairobi, eager to glorify his presence with applause and ceremonial smiles.

Nairobi – the land of Dedan Kimathi, Makan Singh, General Kago, and Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima – once stood as a burning centre of resistance against the imperial machinery of the House of Windsor. It was from this soil that the Mau Mau shook the foundations of British colonial rule with armed struggle and uncompromising defiance.

In post-independence, however, Nairobi is being repurposed as a launching pad for renewed imperial penetration into East Africa.

Macron – chief representative of a declining and crisis-ridden French imperial order – arrives in Kenya after France’s humiliating setbacks across the Sahel, where its political influence and military dominance are being dwarfed under the pressure of popular resistance and anti-imperialist realignment. For decades, France destabilized the region through military occupation, economic coercion, comprador elites, and networks of proxy violence, all while masquerading as a guardian of “security” and “democracy”.

Now, with French influence being expelled from countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, Paris is desperately searching for a new strategic foothold in Africa. Thanks to William Ruto, France appears to have found willing partners on the eastern front of the continent.

Kenya’s recent designation as a major non-NATO ally of the United States – a status shared by states deeply embedded in Western military architecture, including Israel – reveals the direction in which the Kenyan ruling class is steering the country. The United States and the United Kingdom already maintain extensive military and intelligence operations in Kenya. Under such conditions, the prospect of French military installations emerging on Kenyan soil no longer appears far-fetched.

Why would imperialism not consolidate its forces where comprador regimes are eager to accommodate it?

Without hesitation, Macron used his African tour to openly attack and undermine the emerging Sahelian political project, particularly the growing convergence among Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger toward a federation rooted – at least rhetorically – in anti-imperialist sovereignty and Pan-African self-determination. Paris understands very well that any serious regional bloc capable of escaping neo-colonial dependency threatens the entire architecture of Western domination in Africa.

Thus Macron’s mission in Nairobi is not merely diplomatic; it is counter-revolutionary. He is mobilizing allied African regimes against the Sahel states and attempting to isolate any political formation that challenges French, European, or NATO interests on the continent.

History teaches us that many African ruling classes rarely disappoint imperialism when called upon to defend foreign capital against African liberation.

Macron promises billions in “investment” for Africa – over USD 20 billion, we are told – yet France refuses to cancel colonial debts imposed on African nations. France refuses to dismantle its military bases across the continent. France refuses to withdraw its troops from African soil. France refuses to cease its interventions and destabilization campaigns in the Sahel.

That alone should expose the fraudulence of these so-called partnerships.

Imperialism does not invest in Africa to liberate Africans. It invests to secure markets, extract resources, discipline governments, and reproduce dependency under modern financial and military arrangements.

Yet the Kenyan people have refused to cower.

Defying state repression, ordinary Kenyans took to the streets to resist the Macron-Ruto spectacle – a staged celebration of imperial partnership masquerading as development diplomacy. Protesters attempted to disrupt the gathering at the Kenyatta International Convention Center, where Macron, alongside a gallery of African rulers, political opportunists, and neoliberal loyalists, was being hosted by William Ruto’s increasingly authoritarian administration.

The response from the Kenyan security apparatus was predictable: brute force, arrests, intimidation, and disappearances – all in service of protecting imperial prestige and suppressing dissent.

Many protesters have reportedly been detained. Others remain unaccounted for.

All to ensure that Macron leaves Nairobi smiling.

Africans – especially workers, peasants, students, and the broader subaltern classes – must not treat these developments lightly. What is unfolding before our eyes is the aggressive re-entrenchment of imperial power on African soil under the language of “investment”, “security”, and “cooperation”.

The battle against neo-colonial domination did not end with the lowering of colonial flags. It merely changed form.

Today, as in the days of the Mau Mau, resistance remains a historical necessity.

Salute to the Kenyan brothers and sisters standing firm in Nairobi and confronting imperial encroachment on behalf of all oppressed peoples of Africa.

Muhemsi Mwakihwelo is a writer and a member of the Tanzanian Socialist Forum.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch