| DAY BREAK | Kenya-France: What's next? [Part 1]

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:10]Good morning. This is Daybreak and thanks for staying with us. The hashtag on X is citizen daybreak. The SMS code is242 at citizen TV Kenya. Anatub Abdicadil.

[00:00:21]Professor Peter Kagua on my far right is the chief executive officer of the Africa Policy Institute. Dr. Kenneet Ombongi is also with us associate dean in the faculty of arts and social sciences at the University of Nairobi.

[00:00:34]Sheila Lang is development economist one of the beneficiaries of the French scholarships. She will be here as a key stakeholder for the day and as the summit continues. Ahmed Hajon my immediate tribe is diplomacy and foreign policy commentator. Ladies and gentlemen, many thanks for your time.

[00:00:52]>> Thank you. Thank you.

[00:00:53]>> Appreciate it. Um, a lot is happening in the country. Let's begin with this u statement by the French president Emanuel Macarron. And here is what he said yesterday reemphasizing the French position in Africa. He said that we are true panafricanists. We believe that Africa is a continent that has an enormous amount to build. It is your guest in the it is your um in the world emphasizing on its importance and therefore has an extraordinary demographic dividend. It is one of the greatest growth in the world. This was the statement by the French president Emanuel Macron. First coming to you Sheila.

[00:01:38]Certainly it's a painful retreat from West Africa and ex- colonies. Uh though the methods seem to change and macro now looking east of the continent. Is it does it also point to a reputational change for the French?

[00:01:53]>> Um I think France has been going through a lot of what I would say is deserved in many ways. Um because maybe we can take a step back and look at history for for a minute. Uh in the angophone world where we are we are Kenya for example is a former British colony and then you have the West African our West African brothers and sisters who are former French colonies.

[00:02:19]I think it's important for our viewers to uh appreciate the difference between the French colonial method versus the British colonial method because the French colonial method was more of an assimilation type of colonial method. So it it messes up more with your psyche than the direct rule that we had with the British. What does this mean? It means that while we were here and we were under British rule, it was always quite clear that they were them and we were us. And so we did not have this really patriarchal link almost like an umbilical cord that we couldn't let go of because we knew they were them and we were us. And uh although they are still of course it's not a perfect divorce with the British, we are still grappling with a lot of issues back then. What it did for us, it it made us have to look in the mirror and and reckon ourselves and kind of come to terms with we have to be on our own and we have to chat our own way forward. So it's a very hands-off uh uh uh method that we had with the British the franophhone side.

[00:03:14]The reason that we are still seeing issues with West Africa and and it is only now that their ties are being uh cut off is because of this colonial method of assimulation. Now assimulation meant that there was this uh you know that the French philosophy is always egalit which which basically says that you know if you if you work hard enough one day you will become like me. Okay.

[00:03:34]>> So if you stop speaking your language for example you will be able to speak French without an accent. Uh you will look like me one day you will you know and and and there was you know some pluses that did not exist in the British side. uh for example, France was one of the earlier ones who were able to have these people who were assimilated into their system in France, you know, having several positions while the British didn't. But what this did, however, is that it ended up having this extremely toxic uh kind of um patternal relationship where to this day you still see France was the last country for example to still have military bases postcolonial in West African countries >> permanent actually. permanent actually France was also uh the franophhone countries in West Africa still have their currencies that are tied to the Frank while we don't right we we we are pegged to the dollar and and and I can go on and on and on it's almost like nothing happens before they ask you know their parents like is it okay if we do this and and I think it's it's it's it's a good time that West Africa kind of cuts off this ties because as a development expert I can tell you that this has really held them behind tying your currency to the frank instead of tying it to the dollar not being able to compete having this permanent military bases. Um, and so I think it came at a time where there was a lot of backlash going on in West Africa and France was looking for a new friend and that's where Kenya then came in. So I think we can discuss further what that means for Kenya. But it's important for Kenya to appreciate why they have left their first wives and now we we're being quoted to be you know the second young wives.

[00:05:05]>> Yeah. what this is then potent for the new frontier. We'll also be detailing >> um the content of uh the Kenya France defense partnership and the agreement what's contained there in plus also a map illustrating the military bases that have been shut by the French in in West Africa. Before I come to you Ahmedari.

[00:05:23]>> Yes.

[00:05:24]>> Certainly this is a new French sphere of influence is it and what what does this new frontier then potend for Paris given its own fair share of domestic problems back at home?

[00:05:36]>> Oh well is uh very interesting description a new uh uh venture for uh for France. Uh but it's interesting that uh you uh France never left Africa.

[00:05:52]It's been around uh for a while and um uh what is happening uh I I think uh uh there are diverse of course u perspectives to this uh there are those optimists who will uh look at it as a renewed French influence in Africa. uh new goodies for uh a number of countries that are uh signing bilateral agreements with France.

[00:06:25]uh but um uh the pessimist will look at it much more differently uh actually and asking questions whether uh France has changed its attitude uh that the West Africans probably franophhone uh saharan region are running away from or has just changed its address uh from uh you know franophhone to angrophone uh uh Africa. Uh but really uh uh uh France is trying to reassert itself in a world where Africa has become increasingly relevant uh probably more than any other uh region in the world. It is taking its claim uh to to a continent that um as I said somewhere yesterday that is going through what I see as a second uh uh scramle for Africa. Okay. And uh the question we are asking is whether this uh scramble for Africa 2 will be actually different from the scramble for Africa one uh which happened during the Balin uh conference of 188485.

[00:07:37]uh but um indications uh uh uh uh are uh that um is a France is going to pursue its policy as it has always done uh defense agreements as you earlier communicated uh trying to extend its influence to to you know you know to pursue its interests in a continent where we are more or less become come a big military base uh for uh powerful countries around the world.

[00:08:13]Um the the the the the only thing I will want to correct from what my sister was saying earlier as a historian.

[00:08:23]uh there is an impression that is created that uh uh uh British colonialism was more benign uh than the French one because one followed a policy of assimilation and the other one followed what they call indirect rule far from it. Uh colonialism uh wherever you find it, it meant one and the same thing.

[00:08:45]>> Okay. uh which is alienate the colonized peoples uh you know dominate them uh so that you can control them.

[00:08:54]>> Okay. Whether it was assimilation or indirect assimilation by the French or indirect rule by the British, it actually ended up uh producing colonial subjects who were subordinate >> uh you know to to the citizens of empire and they denied all the necessary uh uh rights and liberties that they were entitled in. uh I mean entitled uh uh four and um uh that notion is a bit wept uh whether it was assimilation or indirect rule there were fundamental differences of course >> but the end result was the >> uh alienation domination and control of the colonized.

[00:09:39]>> Yes. Um uh I want to agree with my the lady on the right. Um I want to agree with her because of her views. This is an important distinction to make.

[00:09:53]>> You see um there is a concept in u French um French philosophy. It's called a mission seat. Yeah, >> this is a a very penicious um um system um a way in which um African men and women were to evolve and it's called evaluate into uh proper French men and proper French women.

[00:10:25]The British uh um system nonetheless is equal in bar barbarism to the one of the French. But uh the French had a little bit of a extension of this viciousness that we have all experienced here in this continent that uh they wanted uh to tell us that there was no such thing as an afroentrism or an African philosophy or cosmology that everybody was French. that is the little 1 cm that the French had above the British. But the professor is right that they're essentially the same. Now that point uh being taken is the fact is that um it is the French uh people who have introduced the concept of coups to the world. Um the first coup was was against Louis theif Louis the 15th Louis the 15th 15th or 16th by Maximleian Robert Spear and uh he famously said that for the for the for the nation to live the king must die and they executed their king and from that day on until today the French uh government and the French empire um have gone through stages. went through the first stage of Napoleon, the man who conquered Europe and cut all the noses from the pharaohs in the in the uh yeah Napoleon Bonapart is a uh who's Italian by by genetics and cos by and a man who conquered France and went to Egypt and it broke all the noses of uh the pharaohs and everybody so that they could see that this civilization was uh shocking that Africans could have built Yes. Uh thirdly is if you want to understand the French, you understand Algeria. Um the the the French nearly went into a civil war. I'm just giving a little chronological event so that the the people of this country can have a conversation with us about history uh and political economy and that is a um one of the most important turning points in French history. The country nearly collapsed. President de Gaul um General de Gaulle stopped it and said no more colonialism and Algeria became free. not because it was given independence, one of the few countries in Africa that kicked the French out. The French went to West Africa and their economy uh there's an umbilical cord or a mother ship right on top of West Africa and for nearly 100 years they have exploited uh that region uh in a way that's just unprecedented. I'll give you a simple example. Nish produces um uh the ingredient they use for electricity.

[00:13:01]Um and uh they buy it for 100 million um pound $100 million a year every year.

[00:13:09]It's about 100 million. They then go and sell it the European market for 100 billion euros which lights up most of Europe. So Nijer produces this mineral resources for France and um the government that was there that was overthrown by the military was overthrown because it was a patrimony.

[00:13:31]It was uh exploiting Nijer on behalf of the French Republic. This brings into question the very ideas of democratic government, the rule of law, >> multi-party politics, constitutional government. The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether when there is a president in a country that is in Africa or in the global south that is working with the European metropole in an exploitative way. Uh is it legitimate for that um um administration to be overthrown uh because it is doing the same thing that was being done directly by the metropol. Um lastly I want to uh add even more an existential much more existential thing. You know, in 2019, the uh the French president came here for his first historic trip, and he signed a slew of documents in which um u uh the Uhuru government, which was 50/50 with the president R. Now, there was a cohabitation. It was not a presidency of only Uhuru. And nobody knows where those deals have gone. These deals that have come here that are called instruments, right? um uh to the tune of say a billion dollars in the investing about 20 billion in all of Africa um is a is um something that um we know is um uh a cool de of our uh principles of u uh open and transparent uh negotiations between countries uh in Western Europe uh or the United States because we know that uh those previous documents and those previous signatures nothing has happened in the last 5 to six to seven uh eight years because those investments have not come in or if they have come in they have been under the cloud of corruption.

[00:15:20]So I put it to you u that it is the West Africans who have given us an experience. If we are to judge the French Republic in all honesty and all fairness we have to ask ourselves where did they come from and what have they done there and what they have done in West Africa.

[00:15:34]>> The entire population of West Africa has said no.

[00:15:36]>> Okay. and we'll have a demonstration here on the broadcast. Prof >> to you >> the summit and how uh the weight it carries for Kenya in the midst of um the shifting global order and France now paying attention to the east of the continent. How relevant is it?

[00:15:55]>> It's often said that if you don't know where you're coming from, it's very most likely that you don't even know where you're going. and the anti-atholic uh you know uh sentiments within our system directly responsible for the naivity we find ourselves in uh in terms of building uh with France and the kind of PR uh you know uh government that we are learning around this issue um and we will stand judged by fellow Africans >> of course >> as to how we behaved at a certain time I went to South Africa against the backdrop of the end of appetite and a huge huge huge uh resentment >> of Kenya because of the role we played not us all >> but a number of our elite >> in support's government >> who openly supported both Israel >> and and apartheid >> in a very dramatic way to the point that uh it was one of the many reasons why the East African community collapsed because There were some certain countries in Africa which could not bear with us. Never mind that we are the ones who hosted uh the ch the the the the mothers and children of the appetite fighters in the front right state because they had to come to school in Kenya and seek medical attention in Kenya who are more advanced. So that point didn't come out well. What came out well is that we were sympathizers uh with appetite. Now on our land a France a French president claims that he's panafricanist >> that is really playing around with our minds.

[00:17:41]>> We know conceptually speaking >> the concept that France has advanced over the last two or so centuries is something called frana.

[00:17:51]>> Mhm.

[00:17:52]>> Franapreak is the establishment of a territory over Africa. It is not about decolonization or all this nonsense we've been talking about. It's about tightening the grip on the African continent, the 29 countries that are supposed to be franophhone.

[00:18:10]What that meant is that uh whereas the British uh the Portuguese >> and a little bit the Spanish uh decided or Spaniards decided to decoloronize or to set free their colonies and establish new forms of ruse partnership which we call your colonial uh that's what Nikuma called them.

[00:18:31]uh the French refused to let go >> and Charles de Go or Shadow did not in any way uh have any contradiction in what he was saying. He said if we let our colonies in Africa go, we will immediately become a third world.

[00:18:52]>> So for France to be a superpower, it needed to tighten its grip. And it did so so ruthlessly up to 2025 in the year 2025.

[00:19:04]>> And it's now that after criticism even from European countries like Italy that it has decided to slightly loosen its um its grip on our African brothers.

[00:19:16]>> So what that mean? Frank meant that all the resources that each of the 29 African countries produce 50% of them are deposited in France and the 50 that remains 20 you have to apply in order to get that money in other words to show cause why you're using >> it was economic coronization for for that reason and I think hashi has explained how resources and the declaration was anything on the ground belongs to France up to 2025.

[00:19:53]>> Okay, >> that's why I said they never left.

[00:19:55]>> So it is important.

[00:19:56]>> So they can't come back.

[00:19:57]>> And when they were leaving, if you remember the referendum of 1958 >> uh in Guinea >> decided that he's not going to be part of that the way Algeria did.

[00:20:08]>> But for him it's unfortunate. The French uprooted all the railway and all the developmental infrastructure they had put in that country. And it is said uh French women even asked for gifts. I'm not going to mention them that they have given to their fellow African ladies.

[00:20:26]They recalled them back. So the the country was so proud that Nikuma and you know you know the president of Mari that time had to literally go in to help that country stand on its feet because was completely dilapidated. That's how that's how Frank Africa Frankfrey >> has operated on the >> and if you just give me one second back from the break. I'll I'll begin with you um Sheila because we have plenty to go through including the details of the defense partnership >> between France and Kenyan and what's contained there in uh plus also the demographic representation of uh the countries that have so far shut all French military bases in West Africa.

[00:21:12]All that is after the break here on the broadcast. Stay with us.