Dakar, January 17 (APS) – France plans to close its permanent military bases in Senegal and other countries in West and Central Africa in the summer of 2025, APS learned from a French military source .
”Today we are in a phase of dialogue for the implementation of the withdrawal of French elements from Senegal. What I can say is that there will no longer be a permanent French military base in Senegal in the summer of 2025,” she told APS.
”Our desire is that there will no longer be a French flag on a military footprint in Senegal on this date. We will, depending on the expectations of the authorities, continue to cooperate as other countries do,” she indicated, insisting on the fact that there was no longer any need for France to have a military base. permanent on Senegalese soil.
She insisted that the French military presence was seen today as an attack on sovereignty.
”It’s completely understandable and we all understand it,”’ she commented, assuring that the presence of these bases had become a problem for the French military.
”We know that this will create problems, bias understanding and undermine our credibility and legitimacy while fueling sentiment against France,” argued the French military source.
-The President of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, declared on January 31 that Senegal would work towards the advent of a new cooperation doctrine involving the end by 2025 of all foreign military presences on Senegalese soil.
This announcement comes in the wake of a previous outing in the French press during which he had, in fact, decreed the closure of France’s permanent military base in Senegal.
The French military source reported that France had already undertaken since the summer of 2023 to reorganize its military system, which was to involve the closure of its permanent military bases in West and Central Africa.
After leaving Mali at the end of ten years of counter-terrorism operations, France was forced to withdraw from Burkina Faso, Niger and recently Chad.
At the dawn of the new year, the President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, in turn announced that the French military base in his country would come under Ivorian command.
