French President Emmanuel Macron travelled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Wednesday for a landmark visit to the African Union headquarters, where he announced that Paris will host an international conference before the end of 2026 to raise additional funding for the AU Peace Fund. The visit to the AU — Macron's first — formed the final leg of a five-day Africa tour that included a bilateral meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Africa Forward economic summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where French and African companies pledged $27 billion in investment across sectors from energy to artificial intelligence.

At the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital and the seat of the 55-member continental body, Macron held a trilateral meeting with AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Speaking afterwards, Macron said an international conference to "raise additional funds and mobilise new public and private partners" for the AU Peace Fund would be held in Paris in the final quarter of this year. The fund, established in 1993 by the AU's predecessor organisation, was largely dormant for two decades before being revived in 2018; around $400 million of a billion-dollar target has been raised to date. Macron also called for full implementation of UN Resolution 2719, adopted in 2023, which mandates contributions from UN member states to finance AU-led peace operations.

Beyond peacekeeping finance, Macron argued that "African problems must first and foremost be resolved and coordinated by Africa," describing the AU as the "legitimate body" for the continent's crisis management. He expressed support for permanent African seats on the UN Security Council and said he intended to raise the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo — a region that has seen prolonged fighting involving multiple armed groups and neighbouring states — with both the UN and AU. He also flagged concern over the economic impact on Africa of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, pledging a short-term aid initiative to help the most affected countries and reduce dependence on imported fertilisers.

The diplomatic momentum, however, is shadowed by a deeper reckoning with France's history on the continent. A wave of coups in the Sahel in the early 2020s brought to power military governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger that expelled French troops and made little secret of their hostility toward Paris. Several other nations, including Senegal and Ivory Coast, have also requested the withdrawal of French forces. Analysts note that China and Russia have steadily expanded their economic and political footprint across Africa as France's influence has receded. At the Nairobi summit, a moment caught on video — in which Macron seized a microphone and publicly chided a noisy audience — went viral, reviving uncomfortable comparisons to the paternalistic attitudes many Africans associate with France's colonial past.

With less than a year remaining in his second and final presidential term, Macron is clearly seeking to define a legacy of partnership rather than paternalism. Whether the investment pledges and the promised Paris conference will shift perceptions built up over decades remains an open question. As one South African scholar observed, Macron has spent nearly a decade promising a "refounded relationship" with Africa — yet the structural change many on the continent are looking for has yet to fully materialise.