![\"President](\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/ivory-og_image.jpg\")
<\/figure>\nFrance\u2019s presence in West Africa, once robust, has been rapidly diminishing. Ivory Coast follows nations such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, and Chad in scaling back or completely severing military ties with Paris. <\/p>\n
Notably, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger expelled French troops after military coups, shifting towards alliances with Russia.<\/p>\n
In November, Senegal and Chad both announced the departure of French forces, signaling a shift in regional security dynamics. On December 26, France officially returned its first military base to Chad, marking the end of its military presence in the Sahel region.<\/p>\n
The decision to remove French forces has been tied to growing local sentiments against French influence. Analysts see this as part of a broader transformation in Africa\u2019s relationship with its former coloniser. <\/p>\n
While France ended its colonial rule in West Africa in the 1960s, its military presence has often been viewed as a lingering symbol of external control.<\/p>\n
In Senegal, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye recently reinforced this sentiment, citing the incompatibility of military bases with national independence. <\/p>\n
\u201cSenegal is an independent and sovereign country, and sovereignty does not accommodate the presence of military bases,\u201d Faye said in an interview commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Thiaroye massacre, where French forces killed hundreds of African riflemen demanding their pay. <\/p>\n
Faye also called for further investigations into the incident, which French President Emmanuel Macron has officially recognized as a massacre.<\/p>\n
France’s diminishing footprint on the continent has now resulted in its expulsion from more than 70 percent of the African countries where it maintained a military presence after the end of colonial rule.<\/p>\n
The French military\u2019s permanent presence is now limited to Djibouti, with 1,500 soldiers, and Gabon, with 350 personnel.<\/p>\n Ivory Coast has declared its decision to end the stationing of French troops within its borders, marking a significant shift in its military and geopolitical landscape. The move aligns the nation with a growing list of African countries redefining their relationships with the former colonial power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000079713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[192],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-52467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-wycliffe-nyamasege"],"bylines":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"contributors":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"featured_image":{"id":2000079713,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000079713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52467"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=52467"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=52467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"France's](\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_7ab609f2-cba1-42a8-8589-85742927f748.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"