France resumes its aid after three years of interruption

France has paid budgetary aid to the Central African Republic for the first time in three years, with a donation of 10 million euros from the French Development Agency, the embassy announced at a press conference on Wednesday 13 November in Bangui.

“Sign of progressive reengagement and normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries”the aid is intended to finance “directly, without conditionality or any reservation, operations relating to the sovereignty and democratic governance of the Central African State”announced the French ambassador, Bruno Foucher.

In June 2021, France decided to freeze its budgetary aid and suspend its military cooperation with this Central African state, judged ” accomplice “ of an anti-French campaign remotely guided by Moscow. In April, French President Emmanuel Macron received his Central African counterpart, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, in Paris and the two leaders adopted “a road map” with a view to establishing a “constructive partnership” and rekindle their relationship.

Help for the next elections

The funds, paid in one go into the Treasury account, will be allocated for “support for economic and financial governance (5 million euros)”, “to the absorption of domestic arrears (3 million euros)” and finally “for the organization of elections (2 million euros)”according to a distribution decided by the Central African Ministry of Finance, specified Bruno Foucher.

The allocation allocated to the elections will supplement the common pot managed by the United Nations Development Program and supported by the European Union for the organization of the local elections in July 2025.

Relations between the two countries gradually deteriorated after the arrival of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in the Central African Republic in 2017 and the repeated attacks to which French interests were regularly subject.

The Central African Republic is one of the countries in French-speaking Africa where Paris has seen its influence contested in favor of Russia in recent years. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have also distanced themselves from the former colonial power, while Russia is pushing its pawns.