A Generation Unburdened by Empire
The diplomats who negotiated the 25-year EU–AU Joint Vision in May stressed that “our future lies in close cooperation and joint efforts to the mutual benefit of the people of Africa and Europe”—language that signals a deliberate shift away from historical hierarchies. Demographically, that recalibration is inevitable: nearly seven Africans in ten are younger than thirty, and the median European policymaker engaging with them was born after most African independences. Paris, Brussels and Abuja alike know that their voters and labour markets will either prosper together or stumble together in the face of climate stress and digital disruption.
From Grievance to Mutual Gains
France’s Agence Française de Développement channelled €13.7 billion in 2024—most of it climate-tagged—into African projects co-governed with local universities and civil society, proof that development finance is no longer a one-way street. Meanwhile, the EU’s Global Gateway has approved 138 flagship corridors worth over €20 billion, from Kenyan hydrogen to Senegalese fibre optics, explicitly branding them investments of equals rather than neo-colonial ventures. These initiatives tie African growth to European regulatory standards, offering an alternative to the debt-heavy models criticised elsewhere.
Narrative Battles: Asia’s Stake in North–South Discord
The most potent threats to this maturing partnership come not from lingering resentment but from third-party actors who profit when Europe and Africa distrust each other. A January 2025 Hybrid CoE study documents how Beijing and Moscow amplify colonial-era grievances in Francophone West Africa to “weaken public perception of France and the US”. Moscow’s new Africa Corps did exactly that when it trumpeted its “more fundamental” backing for Mali after Wagner’s withdrawal on 6 June (Reuters, 6 June 2025). Such messaging aims to portray European engagement as relics of yesterday, even as Chinese firm Sunrev broke ground on a US $200 million solar-component hub in Egypt’s Suez Canal Zone last month—hardly an altruistic gesture.
France as Europe’s Strategic Conduit
Paris retains leverage precisely because it no longer claims primacy. By pairing counter-terrorism support in the Gulf of Guinea with EU-backed green-hydrogen corridors in Morocco, France offers African partners both immediate security and long-term decarbonisation pathways. President Macron, addressing Britain’s Parliament on 8 July, warned Europeans against “dual dependencies on the US and China” and argued that only a resilient Euro-African compact can safeguard democratic values. That view resonates in Addis Ababa, where—as debates on colonial reparations intensify—AU officials insist that forward-looking cooperation must not be sacrificed to symbolic battles that yield little for today’s youth.
Turning Legacy into Leverage: A Blueprint for Interdependent Growth
Post-colonial arguments retain moral weight but lose policy traction when weaponised by external powers. If Europe and Africa allow narrative entrepreneurs to frame every negotiation as a zero-sum rerun of history, both will forfeit the demographic dividend, clean-energy financing and security interoperability they sorely need. France’s role—no longer paternal but facilitative—illustrates how historical ties can evolve into platforms for genuinely interdependent growth. The task now is to inoculate publics on both shores of the Mediterranean against recycled grievances and to prove, through tangible joint projects, that a North–South friendship can be both equitable and indispensable.
