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On 29 October 2025, in a ceremony at the Defence Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Defence, the Honourable Roselinda Soipan Tuya, and France’s Ambassador to Kenya, H.E. Arnaud Suquet, signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement (the DCA) that marks a significant moment in a bilateral relationship that, while active in practice, had until now lacked any formal legal framework to govern it.
The DCA establishes that framework, covering joint training and maritime security, intelligence cooperation and peacekeeping. It is a carefully drafted instrument, measured in its immediate scope but consequential in what it signals about the trajectory of the relationship.
11 May 26
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That trajectory will be on full display during the Africa Forward Summit from 11 – 12 May 2026. This summit, which brings together African and French heads of state and government alongside private sector leaders, has traditionally been held in France or in Francophone Africa since its inception in 1973. That Kenya has been chosen to host the summit for the first time is itself a statement about how the France-Africa relationship is being reimagined.
This article examines the DCA as a piece in the evolving relationship: what it says, what it means legally, what it portends for investment and commerce, and what the months ahead may bring for a partnership whose ambitions are only beginning to take shape.
Click here to download and read the full article.
Should you require more information about this article, please do not hesitate to contact Luisa Cetina.
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Contributors
Arooj Sheikh – Associate