Senegal’s Prime Minister Mr. Ousmane Sonko was expected in Paris in September, where he was invited to Bpifrance’s BIG business event. This was to be an opportunity to meet his French counterpart François Bayrou, who is expected in Dakar at the end of 2025 for the sixth Franco-Senegalese intergovernmental seminar.
However, in a recent Post the Senegalese Prime Minister declined the invitation citing other prior pre-set engagements.
Since 2013, Bpifrance has become the one stop shop for entrepreneurs with a vastly comprehensive toolbox offered in the field to customers through 50 local branches. Their mission is simple: “we believe in serving the future, by being entrepreneur-centric and heavily decentralized.”
Bpifrance’s goal is to favour the growth of the French economy by helping entrepreneurs thrive. “We are the trusted partner of entrepreneurs and champion the interests of those who are visionaries; those who dare to take risks in order to take their businesses further.” We have many resources at our disposal to help entrepreneurs, the champions of the 21st century, succeed. We mainly support micro-businesses, SMEs and mid-caps but we also accompany large caps that are considered important to the interests of France in terms of national economy, the territories or employment. We offer a continuum of solutions adapted to every key step in a business’ growth such as: business creation, financing, guarantees or equity investment.
Bpifrance is also the French agency for innovation, delivering massive programs to innovative entrepreneurs. To put it simply: Bpifrance is a financial institution, with private culture, serving the collective interest. Our values are determination / optimism / proximity / simplicity and also performance: we generate significant returns to our shareholders.
In Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s words, His Facebook post read “#PrimatureSN: The Prime Minister would like to express his sincere thanks to BPI France, and more especially to its General Manager, Mr. Nicolas DUFOURCQ, for the honorable invitation received by mail on July 22, 2025, to participate as a guest of honor at the 11th edition of Bpifrance Inno Génération (BIG), which will be held on September 23, 2025 in Paris.
Due to an obstacle related to his agenda, the Prime Minister will not be able to honour this invitation, to which he would have liked to take part personally. However, he will be represented at the event by a member of the Government.
Besides, the Prime Minister will soon welcome his French counterpart in Dakar as part of the intergovernmental seminar (SIG), a joint initiative announced by the two Heads of State.
The Primature also informs that the Prime Minister will make an official visit to the United Arab Emirates from September 8 to 12, 2025. On the occasion, he will be received by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates.
Finally, on September 13 and 14, 2025, the Prime Minister will go to Italy for the last leg of his trip. This visit will be dedicated to a meeting with the Senegalese diaspora in Europe, all confused countries, to exchange issues related to the current governance, the Economic and Social Reduction Plan, as well as the role and place of the diaspora in Vision 2050 and the National Agenda of The transformation of Senegal.
Per the post, this indicates the Mr. Ousmane Sonko will not be attending the event. However, he has stated that he will be nominating a top government official from Senegal to represent him at the event.
Additional Source: Africa Intelligence, BpiFrance
