After Nairobi and its shower of announcements, Emmanuel Macron chose Addis Ababa to change tone. On Wednesday, May 13, the French president is to meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed there, deliver a speech at the headquarters of the African Union and participate, according to RFI and an AFP dispatch, in an exchange with Antonio Guterres and Mahmoud Ali Youssouf. The stakes go far beyond the day’s agenda. Paris wants to prove that the sequence opened in Kenya is not merely a business summit. Indeed, it can still lead to a diplomatic voice heard in Africa. However, France no longer holds the sway it once had on the continent.
In Addis Ababa, France Seeks More Than a Simple Stopover
Some trips extend a summit. This one fits that pattern. On May 11 and 12, in Nairobi, France and Kenya co-chaired Africa Forward. This meeting was presented by the Élysée and by French diplomacy as a moment dedicated to innovation. Moreover, it focused on growth and economic partnerships. The setting was one of investments, quantified commitments, and the revival of ties between public and private actors in France and Kenya. Addis Ababa abruptly shifts the center of gravity. With the African Union, with the United Nations, with Ethiopia as a hinge power of the Horn, the visit enters another dimension.
This change of register is anything but anecdotal. For several years, the French voice on the continent has run up against significant setbacks, mainly in the Sahel. From Mali to Burkina Faso, from Niger to Senegal, the retreat has been military, political and symbolic. In this context, every presidential trip to Africa carries a simple and awkward question. What can France still do on this continent when it no longer enjoys the obviousness of its past influence? Furthermore, it no longer has the monopoly on the narrative concerning its current role.
Addis Ababa does not provide a miraculous answer. The Ethiopian capital nevertheless offers a framework where France can try something other than a defensive plea. It presents itself not as a former security power in its old backyard. On the contrary, it positions itself as one partner among others on a continent that now thinks of itself at the scale of its institutions. Moreover, it also thinks in terms of its markets, its strategic corridors and its own trade-offs. This trip therefore matters less for its exoticism than for what it forces Paris to acknowledge. East Africa is not approached with the reflexes that long structured the French presence in the West. Nor is it worked with the usual words. Finally, it cannot be managed with traditional hierarchies either.
At the time of writing, however, one must scrupulously distinguish what is observation and what is expectation. Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in Addis Ababa, his planned meeting with Abiy Ahmed, his announced speech at the African Union and the principle of a format with Antonio Guterres and Mahmoud Ali Youssouf are reported by RFI and largely confirmed by AFP. By contrast, neither the precise content of the exchanges nor the existence of any new announcements can be considered certain. The Ethiopian stop is therefore, for now, a diplomatic signal. It is not yet an outcome.
The location itself already speaks. Addis Ababa is not only the capital of a large African state. It is also the city of the African Union, in other words one of the rare places where the continent stages itself. Moreover, it is considered a collective political subject. For Emmanuel Macron, speaking there means presenting himself before an institutional architecture that no European capital can claim to summarize in its place. The nuance is significant. It is no longer just a question of convincing a partner, but of being heard in a space where French authority is neither central nor natural.
Behind Words of Friendship, a Relationship Built on Debt, Energy and Reciprocal Interests
RFI calls Ethiopia a friendly country. The phrase belongs to common diplomatic language. It only holds if translated into facts. In the Franco-Ethiopian case, those facts are above all financial and economic. RFI reports that in February 2026 Paris and Addis Ababa concluded a debt restructuring agreement as well as a new financing program of €81 million. The Ethiopian public agency ENA reported, on February 11, a bilateral restructuring agreement. It also mentioned support of €81.5 million. As for the French Development Agency, it describes an Ethiopian economy engaged in an exit from crisis since mid-2024. This exit is supported by macroeconomic reforms and by dealing with indebtedness.
In other words, friendship here is anything but nebulous. It is quantified. It is negotiated in repayment schedules, in financing instruments, in support programs and in energy investments. RFI mentions a partnership of more than €600 million, including over €300 million in energy. These amounts indicate a real presence. They are not enough to describe a balance of power. France remains a useful actor for Ethiopia. It is neither its only recourse nor its guardian.
This is the ambiguity of the African sequence sought by Emmanuel Macron. In Nairobi, according to RFI, Africa Forward ended with €23 billion in announced investments, split between €14 billion from French actors and €9 billion from African actors. The figure is spectacular, almost too much so. It gives the summit the reassuring seriousness of large economic movements. But an announcement is not a disbursement, any more than a forum is foreign policy. The Addis Ababa stop makes sense precisely in that gap. It aims to give the post-Nairobi period a political credibility that the amounts alone do not guarantee.
The relationship with Ethiopia also interests Paris because it partly escapes worn-out patterns. The country is emerging from violence, internal fractures and an acute financial crisis. It offers no simple image to French diplomacy. Neither exemplary partner nor convenient foil, it forces a more stripped-down, more transactional, and more cautious approach. In that sense, it represents a useful case for France. Working with Addis Ababa allows discussion of development, debt, reform and energy. It avoids reducing the link to the shadow of military operations elsewhere on the continent.
The French bet is read here by its omissions. It is less about reconquest than redeployment. No longer about imposing a center, but about finding relays. No longer speaking for Africa, but attempting to speak with some of its institutions and regional powers. The ambition is less flashy. It is also, perhaps, more realistic.
The Horn of Africa, Between Crisis Diplomacy and Maritime Route Security
The interest of this visit finally lies in the geography it invokes. Ethiopia is not only the host country of the African Union. It is one of the keystones of the Horn of Africa, that zone where civil wars, regional ambitions, trade routes and maritime concerns intersect. RFI recalls that Franco-Ethiopian military cooperation dates back to 2019, notably with support for the training of the Ethiopian navy. The same source specifies that it was frozen during the Tigray war, then relaunched at the beginning of 2023 after the Pretoria agreement.
From a distance the subject may provoke a smile. A navy for a landlocked country seems paradoxical. In reality, it reflects a very serious concern. Since losing sovereign access to the sea after Eritrea’s independence, Ethiopia has always thought about its maritime vulnerability. Its trade, its imports, its regional ambition depend on outlets it does not fully control. Training personnel, thinking about port access, securing trade routes—all of this strikes at the heart of its strategy.
This is where the name Bab-el-Mandeb appears, that maritime chokepoint between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. For Europe, it is among the most sensitive passages of world trade. For the littoral states and the powers projecting their interests there, it concentrates circulation and security stakes. Moreover, it is crucial for energy and influence. France is obviously not discovering this reality in May 2026. But by choosing to extend its African tour with Addis Ababa, it signals that it wants to inscribe its presence on the continent. Moreover, it seeks a broader map than that of its former areas of intervention.
It would nevertheless be misleading to see this as the prelude to a spectacular French comeback in the Horn of Africa. Paris has neither unlimited freedom of action nor a dominant position. Moreover, it does not even have a single reading of the crises crossing the region. Other powers, from the Gulf to Turkey, from China to the United States, are present there with their means, interests and networks. Above all, the African states concerned intend to defend their own calculations. France can propose, support, accompany. It can no longer hope to command alone.
That is, ultimately, where this Ethiopian stop gains its relief. It forces the French government to abandon two symmetrical illusions. The first would be to believe that a summit with flattering figures is enough to recreate influence. The second would be to conclude that any setback in the Sahel condemns Paris to disappearance everywhere else. Between these two fictions, Addis Ababa opens a more modest and demanding path. Indeed, it proposes a diplomacy capable of articulating the economy, African institutions and security issues. However, this is done without disguising either its scope or its limits.
Emmanuel Macron is therefore playing more than a communication sequence. He is playing the possibility, for France, of inhabiting its relationship with the African continent differently. No longer in the posture of a power arriving laden with certainties. But rather as an actor still seeking its place, its relays and its language. This is not a victory. It is not even yet a decisive shift. But in the turmoil of Franco-African relations, it is already a test of truth.
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