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French troops will begin to withdraw from Ivory Coast in west Africa this month, marking the latest reduction of France’s military presence and a further weakening of western influence in the region.
Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara made the announcement in a new year’s address that French troops would pull out from a base in the main city of Abidjan this month.
“We can be proud of our army, which has now been effectively modernised. It is in this context that we have decided the concerted and organised withdrawal of French forces from Ivory Coast,” he said.
France has about 600 troops in the country, one of its former colonies. The withdrawal will involve the handover of a military infantry battalion to Ivorian troops.
The announcement comes after Chad and Senegal have also sought to loosen their ties with France in recent months, and is the latest indication of a reduction of the long-standing French military presence on the continent.
Ouattara is considered one of France’s strongest allies in west Africa and has formed a close alliance with French President Emmanuel Macron. He has previously condemned countries such as Mali for turning to Russian private military contractors such as the Wagner group.
But Ouattara, who is expected to run for a contentious fourth term in the October elections, may be calculating that announcing a symbolic break with France could benefit him politically in a region where growing anti-French sentiment has taken hold, particularly among young voters.
France increased its presence in Ivory Coast during a civil war in the 2000s, but the country is now much more stable than other former French colonies such as Mali and Niger.
“These were all painful divorces and occurring under pressure from nefarious folks, notably Russia. In Côte d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast], it’s a sign of normalisation and possibly even of success,” said François Heisbourg, a former diplomat and special adviser at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, a French think-tank.
France’s defence ministry said France would work with Ivory Coast to hand over the base by the end of January. “This does not call into question the excellence of the bilateral military relationship. The co-operation plan between the two armies remains in place.”
Macron has previously acknowledged that France is reducing its military footprint across Africa.
“We are not shirking our responsibilities, but building a humble, demanding and long-term partnership,” he said in a July speech on French defence policy.
In Senegal, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in his new year’s message that the country would end the presence of all foreign military powers in the year ahead. Faye had already announced the closure of French military bases in the country in November.
Chad’s president abruptly ended the Sahel country’s military agreement with France in November, and last week France handed over its first military base to the country.
French forces fighting jihadist groups in the Sahel region have also been forced out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger by military governments that are hostile to France, amid rising anti-French sentiment in the population.
The departures have marked a significant reduction in France’s presence in the Sahel region, where several governments have turned towards Russia in recent years.
In all, France is withdrawing about 1,000 troops from Ivory Coast and Senegal. After the French were kicked out of Niger, the US was also forced last year to withdraw about 1,000 troops there and give up its $100mn drone base near Agadez on the southern edge of the Sahara.
France’s remaining military presences — the vestiges of the postcolonial “Françafrique” policy under which France was for decades the most important external power across much of west and central Africa — include a small number of troops in Gabon and a 1,500-strong military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, which Macron visited last month.
Additional reporting by Aanu Adeoye, west Africa correspondent
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