Source: Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) | Published: 2026-05-14
Category: 정권·선거 변동 | Keywords: president
On 11 th and 12 May 2026, the French president, Emanuel Macron, together with his Kenyan counterpart, William Ruto, were co-hosting the Africa-France Summit in Nairobi, dubbed Africa Forward Summit. The high-level summit was the first of its kind in an Anglophone nation, as most had been previously in French West Africa, which France had claimed as its sphere of influence due to the colonial ties with the nations. In recent years, countries such as Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have undergone military coups, changing the countries’ leadership and political trajectories. This led to a severing of ties with their former colonial masters, who they accused of impoverishing their countries through agreements that favoured France at the expense of their citizens .
These nations formed the Alliance of the Sahel, a mutual defence and political cooperation, and withdrew from military arrangements, ending France’s military presence in their countries. As a result of this new reality, France has been looking for a footing in other African states, for recalibration and reconfiguration of its neocolonial machinery, as it seeks a comeback on the continent.
President William Ruto, whose public ratings have plummeted since the youth uprising in 2024 and 2025, has been hanging on to the clutches of performativity as he seeks to redeem his image locally and internationally, and buoy his support bases by creating an impression of a working president who is recognised and accepted outside the country. To this endeavour, the president has been offering himself and the country as the testing ground for different neocolonial projects, such as France-Kenya Military Cooperation, which is widely seen as a recolonisation program. One of the contentious clauses in the five-year renewable contract states that French soldiers who commit crimes in Kenya cannot be tried locally by Kenyan courts. This immunity would negatively affect the country’s, as this has happened before with the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (BATUK), whose personnel have been involved in criminal activities such as murder, rapes, and environmental degradation, among others, but have never been prosecuted.
The France-Africa Summit, which brought more than thirty heads of state from Africa, was packaged as a forum for trade and investment partnerships between Africa and France, as equals, and not through the historical coloniser-colonised story. At face value, it appeared so, but the contents of the agreement show a recalibration of the colonial machinery, with an aggressive offensive to regain lost territories by selling a narrative of a new dawn for France-Africa relations.
Against this backdrop, the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya, organised a people’s counter summit, to speak about the neocolonial and imperialist order, being re-enacted in Nairobi. The two-day event brought progressive delegates from the social justice centres, progressive parties in the country, and included organisers from as far as South Korea, France, and the UK. The second day of the Pan African Summit Against Imperialism (PASAI) involved a protest dubbed #KickFranceOutOfAfrika, which was to proceed towards the main venue of the summit, which was at the Kenya International Convention Centre (KICC) in the heart of Nairobi, the same capital that has become the launching pad for imperialist projects against Kenyans and Africans.
The very peaceful procession was met with police brutality, with police hurling tear gas canisters at the peaceful protest, and violently arresting more than twelve delegates who included Mathare Social Justice (MSJC) Coordinator Gacheke Gachihi and lawyer Waringa Wahome, still from the MSJC, together with Dimitrios Patelis, Lee, Danbi, Joti Brar, Guy Bremond, Sayialel Mankuyio, Julius Kamau, John Kamau, Brian Mwanzi, Derick Opiyo, Fredrik Yara, and Colins Otieno. The delegates were then sent to different police stations across the city to disorient rapid response and solidarity from comrades. Having been arrested on the midday of 12 th May 2026, they had not been presented to a court of law by midday of the following day , which is against the constitutional threshold of 24 hours. This disregard of the law is a systematic and coordinated effort by the government to stifle dissent and to curb and control protests in the country. It also disregarded Article 37 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 (CoK 2010), which accords Kenyans the right to peacefully assemble, picket, and protest. Until the afternoon of May 13 th , the state had been frustrating all efforts to bail the delegates.
A call for the release of Mathare Social Justice (MSJC) Coordinator Gacheke Gachihi and comrades (Author, 2026)
Our resolve remains solid as we labour to wage this anti-imperialist struggle. We demand the immediate release of our comrades and delegates, as we call all progressive internationalists to condemn these unjustified attacks on democracy and the people’s voice.