Africa is the core of France's foreign policy and crucial to its great power status. Macron's attempt to change traditional policies towards Africa faces many challenges. Re election provides opportunities for policy adjustments, but achieving the goals is fraught with difficulties.

1、 Macron's Policy Trends towards Africa in His Second Term

Macron's policy towards Africa in his second term continued the spirit of his first term, mainly reflected in three aspects: optimizing military security deployment, continuing financial reform and strengthening development assistance in parallel, and carrying out public diplomacy in a multi pronged manner. In terms of military security, the Macron government will reduce direct military intervention in the Sahel region and instead support local armies and regional organizations, while strengthening cooperation with the Economic Community of West African States. In terms of financial reform, Macron has promoted the transformation of West Africa from Africa to Africa, reducing financial control over West African countries and increasing development assistance to Africa, especially support for African startups and small and medium-sized enterprises. In terms of public diplomacy, Macron strengthened the connection with African society and reshaped the African public's perception of France through measures such as institutional reform, handling historical issues, returning cultural relics, innovating summit formats, and promoting cultural exchanges. In addition, Macron also plans to strengthen cooperation with Africa through multilateral platforms, including support in agriculture, infrastructure construction, energy transformation, and other fields.

2、 Reasons for policy adjustment

The reasons for Macron's second term's non policy adjustments include: 1 France's military driven security policy in the Sahel region failed to effectively address extremism, leading to a deterioration of the situation and the eventual withdrawal of French troops from Mali; 2. France's image in Africa has been damaged, anti French sentiment has spread, French brands have been attacked, and public opinion polls show that young Africans have a negative impression of France; 3. Foreign forces such as Russia, China and Türkiye have intensified their competition in Africa. France feels pressure, and some African countries begin to move closer to other forces; 4. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has distracted France's attention and resources. France has chosen to achieve its military security goals by supporting regional organizations and local armies, and has also strengthened cooperation with Africa in the fields of agriculture and energy. These factors collectively drove Macron's adjustment of non policy during his second term.

3、 Challenges faced by policies

Macron made adjustments to African policies during his second term, but faced internal pressures, policy disputes, and obstacles from the African side. In terms of domestic affairs, Macron lost an absolute majority in the National Assembly, lacked policy consensus, and election politics limited the consistency of policy positions. The policy itself is controversial, such as the difficulty in completely ending the "special relationship between law and non law", and doubts about the effectiveness of Macron's new way of establishing relationships. On the African side, conflicts between countries, differences in financial reforms, and domestic and foreign affairs all pose challenges to the implementation of French policies.

conclusion

Macron's second term will strengthen France Africa relations through policy adjustments and build a new type of partnership to address France's declining influence in Africa. Internal factors, limitations in non policy, and responsiveness of African countries will pose challenges. Under the influence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France Africa relations will become more complex, and France's operational space in Africa may shrink.