French President Emmanuel Macron and more than 30 African leaders kicked off a summit in Kenya on Monday aimed at diversifying Paris' partnerships on the continent and clinching new investment deals.

The Africa Forward Summit is the first France has organised in an English-speaking nation since it began holding such events in the 1970s and follows a series of setbacks in former colonies in West Africa that have moved to reduce French influence.

The convention opened with a meeting of business executives attended by Macron and Kenyan President William Ruto at the University of Nairobi.

In addition to more than 30 African presidents, deputy presidents and prime ministers, attendees included executives from leading French firms such as TotalEnergies and Orange and Africa's richest man, the Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote.

During a state visit on Sunday, Macron announced that French shipping group CMA CGM planned to invest 700-million euros ($823-million) to modernise a terminal at the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

KENYA WANTS SUMMIT OUTCOMES DISCUSSED AT G7
Kenya hopes to use the summit to attract French investors looking to take advantage of the pan-African free trade area (AfCFTA), which is being rolled out across the continent.

Ruto also wants to advance talks on making the global financial system fairer to heavily indebted African countries, a campaign France has pledged to support.

The Kenyan president will attend the G7 summit next month in Evian-les-Bains at the invitation of France, which holds the group's rotating presidency.

"We believe it's a good thing if critical outcomes of this meeting ... can also be mainstreamed as critical agenda items by the G7," Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi told Reuters.

France has traditionally had its closest African ties in its former colonies in the west and centre of the continent but is confronting rising anti-French sentiment.

Coups since 2020 in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger brought to power military officers who expelled French troops and invited in Russian mercenaries. France also handed over control of its last major military facility in Senegal last July after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said French bases were incompatible with the country's sovereignty.

At a news conference with Ruto on Sunday, Macron downplayed the absence of some leaders at the summit. He noted that several West African heads of State, including Faye, would be there and said France was still seeking connections with people from those countries.

"We can disagree with some of these governments...but we never disagree with people," he said.