The summit that French President Emmanuel Macron convened in Kenya this week was supposed to be the hard launch of a new version of France in Africa. This France 2.0 wasn’t just interested in its backyard – or le pré-carré – of former French colonies. It wanted alliances continent-wide. This new France didn’t wring its hands about the past. Instead, it was forward-looking, “entirely free of hang-ups,” as Mr. Macron declared at the Africa Forward Summit’s opening ceremony on Monday. The gathering was the first that France had ever convened in an anglophone African country, which “speaks volumes to the new approach France is taking towards Africa,” says Nicasius Achu Check, an expert in France-Africa relations at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. As the summit finished on Tuesday, Mr. Macron announced that French and African companies had pledged to invest $27 billion on the continent in sectors ranging from energy to artificial intelligence.…