there'd be little incentive to do so outside of setting up tiny urban communities that function as middlemen minorities.
Now I do think there is room for this in the Sahel countries. IOTL the late stages of the French Empire saw many Lebanese move to West Africa to serve as middlemen minorities and the "Nar Beruit" still have a presence as merchants in West Africa, but a few twists of history could see more Europeans doing this. Perhaps French Jews in an averted World War I scenario, for example.