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Four centuries after it first colonized Africa, France is full retreat.
News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
French troops, under escort from Niger forces, withdraw from Niamey, Niger on October 10, 2023, after an order of the Niger’s military rulers. [Photo by Balima Boureima/Anadolu via Getty Images]
In just a few years, the French army has lost most of its military bases in Africa, but while relations with some former colonies remain rocky, most are hoping for a new, military-less relationship.
The retreat, which comes amid increasing budget pressure and political upheaval in Paris, is another sign that France’s influence in Africa, were it first established a colonial presence in the 17th century, has all but slipped away
Since 2022, France has been gradually withdrawing its troops from West Africa, as growing opposition to French military presence in the region, as well as opposition to France’s fight against Islamist insurgency in the Sahel, effectively ended more than 40 years of military presence there. The withdrawal, dubbed the ‘decline of Françafrique’ by pundits and the media, has also seen a shift away from cooperation with the West on security and development and a greater focus on countries such as China and Russia.
Just last week, France officially handed over the N’Djamena base to the Chadian authorities and withdrew all remaining soldiers after Chad announced the termination of its security and defence agreements with France.
This comes after French troops were pushed out of Mali in 2022 and Burkina Faso in 2023. Following a military coup in September 2023, France also ended its military cooperation with Niger – a country that had long served as a base for French counter-terrorism operations in Mali.
And the withdrawal of French troops from former colonies is due to continue.
Côte d’Ivoire – which neighbours the Sahel – and Senegal announced the same fate for French troops in their respective countries for 2025, while Niger‘s military regime announced its path “towards full sovereignty”.
Redefining relations with Africa
“No, France is not backsliding in Africa, it is simply clear-sighted and reorganising itself,” Macron said at the annual ambassadors’ conference in early January.
Macron also defended Paris’ recent military intervention in the African region, but did not shy away from saying things like ‘no African state would be able to manage a sovereign country without French support’ – statements that seem to only confirm the tensions.
“Not all the countries in French-speaking Africa have the same economic relations with France,” said Thierry Vircoulon, a research associate at the Sub-Saharan Africa Centre of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
“Generally speaking, relations between France and [West] Africa have become less and less close since the end of the 20th century. The phenomenon is accelerating, and in time they will become epsilonian,” he added.
Trade between France and sub-Saharan Africa (48 countries) amounted to €24.5 billion in 2023, or 1.8% of France’s exports and 1.9% of its imports, according to 2024 figures from the French Finance Ministry, indicating a downward trend over the past 10 years.
Uranium from Niger at risk
While trade between France and Chad is virtually non-existent, the same cannot be said for Niger, where the French majority state-owned nuclear fuel company Orano mines uranium through three of its subsidiaries.
European paranoia about Chinese dominance on the African continent was one of the underlying themes at the Financial Times’ Africa summit this week.
Niger’s uranium is of strategic importance to France and even Europe, accounting for a quarter of the supply to European nuclear power stations in 2022, reports AFP.
But the situation is looking rocky as Niger seems determined to regain control over the management of its mining resources, particularly uranium.
After Orano suspended production at its mining subsidiary in Niger – 36.6% of which is owned by the Niger state – at the end of October 2024, citing the loss of “operational control”, it filed a new arbitration case against Niger at the end of January, accusing the country of “obstructing the commercialisation of [uranium] production”.
On top of that, Niger now prefers to turn to Russia and Iran, as do Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, which also neighbours Sahel. China became Africa’s leading trading partner in the first half of 2024, with trade estimated at over €152 billion.
No desire to ‘sever all relations’
However, things look a bit more optimistic in other Sahel states.
For the authorities in Burkina Faso, the end of French military presence does not mean the end of diplomatic relations. In other words, even though the French Treasury notes lower trade flows in 2023 compared to 2022, as well as a now “uncertain” outlook, things could be looking up.
For trade relations with Côte d’Ivoire, things look even more positive for France, with Vircoulon pointing to the “many French companies in the country”.
Côte d’Ivoire has nearly 300 French subsidiaries, and more than 700 Ivorian companies are run by French nationals. It is France’s second-largest customer and fourth-largest supplier in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for cocoa. By 2023, bilateral trade was worth €2.4 billion, according to France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
For Senegal, the message is also clear: “the desire to move towards the absence of a military presence, not just from France, should not be interpreted as a desire to sever all relations with France,” Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in November.
But Vircoulon warned of Diomaye Faye’s Africa-focused foreign policy, saying it “could slow down economic relations between France and Senegal”.
Babacar Ndiaye, a self-employed business developer in Saint-Louis, Senegal, works every day to facilitate cooperation between French and European companies and local economic actors. He fears that the tense diplomatic relations between his country and France could affect his business.
“It is already complicated to obtain a three-month visa for professional reasons, and I fear that the situation will get worse in the future, and that this will compromise our economic projects”, he explained.
Of course, as it always ‘takes two to tango’, Vircoulon said it is also important to consider Africa’s influence on the French economy – especially as French companies employed 230,000 people on the African continent in 2023.
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[LG/DE]
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