The 10th France-Nigeria Business Council, held on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi recently, underscored the growing economic partnership between Nigeria and France as Paris expands its engagement beyond its traditional Francophone allies. With bilateral trade reaching $4.7 billion in 2025 and Nigeria remaining the largest destination for French investment in sub-Saharan Africa, the summit showcased how the two countries are translating diplomatic goodwill into tangible investments spanning banking, energy, hospitality, agriculture and other strategic sectors, Uzoma Mba reports
As France looks beyond its traditional Francophone comfort zone in Africa, Nigeria, a country with no colonial history with Paris, has been quietly deepening its commercial ties to France.
On May 12, 2026, on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, the two countries convened the tenth meeting of the France-Nigeria Business Council (FNBC), the institutional machinery driving the engagement.
The summit itself was a marker of that shift: the first time France had convened such a gathering in an Anglophone African country, and a further sign of Paris intentionally diversifying its Africa strategy toward the continent’s larger, English-speaking economies.
