France’s Expanding Footprint in Egypt
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Egypt on 9 May for the first leg of a regional tour that then took him to Nairobi for the Africa Forward summit co-hosted with Kenyan President William Ruto on 11-12 May. After Kenya, Macron also traveled to Addis Ababa for talks focused on economic cooperation and regional security. The sequence of the trip is revealing. At a moment when France is trying to redefine its role on the African continent after years of political and military setbacks in the Sahel, Macron’s itinerary combines three increasingly important pillars of French engagement in Africa: Egypt’s strategic centrality in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Kenya’s growing economic and diplomatic weight in East Africa, and Ethiopia’s geopolitical importance in the Horn of Africa.
In Egypt, Macron met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Alexandria, where the two leaders discussed Gaza, humanitarian aid access and wider regional instability before inaugurating the new campus of Senghor University in Borg El-Arab. But the significance of the visit extended well beyond the university itself. France already maintains one of its densest institutional and economic presences in the country through defence cooperation, infrastructure projects, development financing and a wide network of educational and research institutions. French companies are heavily involved in Egypt’s transport sector, particularly through the Cairo Metro and light rail systems, while Paris has also expanded cooperation with Cairo on defence, energy, health and urban development. Alongside this economic and strategic presence, France has built a long-standing institutional network in Egypt that includes the Institut français d’Égypte, the Université Française d’Égypte and the Institut français d’archéologie orientale in Cairo. Macron’s visit therefore highlighted how French influence in Egypt increasingly operates through multiple layers simultaneously: diplomatic, military, economic and institutional.
A multi-layered partnership
Franco–Egyptian cooperation today extends well beyond diplomacy and security. Macron’s visit this week was his fifth trip to Egypt as president since 2017, compared with two visits by François Hollande during his presidency, underscoring the growing importance Cairo has acquired within France’s Mediterranean and Middle Eastern strategy. The relationship has also intensified in the opposite direction: President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has travelled to France at least eight times since the beginning of his presidency in 2013, reflecting the increasingly strategic nature of bilateral ties between Paris and Cairo.
Politically, France and Egypt have converged closely on Libya since 2014, particularly through their support for eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar. Although France officially backed UN-led diplomacy, it simultaneously developed increasingly close security ties with Haftar’s forces, viewing them as a counterweight to Islamist groups and regional instability. Egypt similarly supports Haftar politically and militarily, considering eastern Libya a critical buffer for its own national security. Their alignment on Libya became one of the main strategic foundations of the broader France–Egypt partnership over the past decade.
France’s relationship with Egypt has also increasingly intersected with a broader regional axis centred around Cairo and Abu Dhabi after 2013. Following Sisi’s rise to power, the UAE became one of Egypt’s main political and financial backers, providing billions of dollars in aid and investment while promoting a shared opposition to Islamist movements across the region. Over the past decade, France progressively aligned itself with this stability-oriented framework through closer coordination with both Egypt and the UAE on regional security, counterterrorism and Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean affairs