French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a tour of Africa with a message that France is not after meddling.

Macron landed in Gabon on Wednesday, the first stop of the tour that will also take the president to Angola, Congo Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Macron’s trip follows the launch of a new Africa policy and is allegedly focused away from France’s troubled former colonies in West Africa’s Sahel region.

In a speech on Monday, Macron promised French military bases in Africa would be co-run with host nations with fewer French troops on the ground. He also said this week’s Africa tour would not be political.

Macron announced the withdrawal of French troops from Mali a year ago, while Burkina Faso last month ended a military deal with Paris.

The Burkinabe Foreign Ministry recently advised the French government that the country was “renouncing the technical military assistance agreement reached in Paris on April 24 1961.” In the correspondence, the ministry said Burkina was giving one month’s notice for “the final departure of all French military personnel serving in Burkinabe military administrations.” The move marks a further downward spiral in relations since the military toppled Burkina’s elected president last year.

Meanwhile, several dozen protesters holding portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and waving Russian flags gathered in front of the French Embassy in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on Wednesday.  The demonstrators reportedly chanted the slogan “Macron is a killer, Putin to the rescue!” and unfurled banners reading, “Macron is the godfather of DRC balkanization,” “Congolese say no to French policy,” and “Macron is an unwanted guest in DRC” as photographed and filmed by local media. The angry protesters also spray-painted anti-French graffiti on the wall of the French Embassy compound.

While only two of Macron’s stops, Gabon and Congo Republic, are former French colonies, some in Gabon’s capital, Libreville, were skeptical of his motives.

“What is Macron doing in Gabon? Is he coming for the forest or to back (President) Ali Bongo?” asked  a 39-year-old technician. “If Macron wants to support the Bongo family, we will rise up,” he said. “Gabon is an independent country. It is not France that appoints Gabonese presidents.”

Observers believe most of the recent coups in Africa were due in large part to the anti-France sentiment in the Sahel.

A series of contradictory messages has shown the French government’s limited appreciation of the inter-connectedness of French and African audiences over the past years.