the breakdown of defense agreements, a snub for France

The announcement took everyone by surprise. On Thursday, in the middle of the night, the Chadian authorities announced the “decision to terminate the defense cooperation agreement” signed with Paris in 1966. A break all the more unexpected as it came a few hours after a visit by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, to his counterpart Abderaman Koulamallah. This seemed to have passed without incident.

The reasons that pushed N'Djamena to act so abruptly remain mysterious. Officially, it is a “historical turning point” and the sign that he “it’s time for Chad to demonstrate its full and complete sovereignty”. “It looks more like a government bloodbath”underlines an observer, even if November 28 is the date of the national holiday in Chad. Paris, for its part, did not react on Friday morning.

France driven out by military juntas

For France, this remains a snub. Africa is gradually disappearing from French military maps. After Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, from which it was expelled by the military juntas which had taken power there, France is now asked to withdraw its troops from Chad, often presented as the pillar of its military presence in the Sahel, but also in Senegal. Because shortly before Chad, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye announced in an interview with Monde that he “there would soon be no more French soldiers” in his country. This position was certainly more expected, the new power in Dakar having never hidden its lack of enthusiasm for the presence of foreign troops, but it remains bad news.

The French military presence on the continent could therefore be limited to a few handfuls of soldiers in Ivory Coast and Gabon, as well as a base in Djibouti.

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Chad, the ultimate and fragile pillar of French influence in Africa

The two announcements come in a very particular context, a few days after the secret submission of the report by former Secretary of State for Cooperation Jean-Marie Bockel, “personal envoy” of President Emmanuel Macron in Africa, on the future of relations between France and its African partners.

Only Ivory Coast, Gabon and Chad were affected by its recommendations. Senegal was treated separately, given the political situation in the country, it was said at the Élysée, as well as Djibouti, because of its strategic importance as a gateway to the Indo-Pacific. A reduction in the military footprint was everywhere accepted, without any figures being put forward. She could go down “down to zero”they said. Elsewhere, there was talk of maintaining a liaison detachment, a base allowing tailor-made deployments, depending on the training needs of partner armies or local situations. Some equipment too heavy to be moved could be left on site: fuel depots, ammunition depots, a few vehicles… In Paris, we pleaded for a system “breathing”.

Jihadist threat

The French military have been pleading for months for their presence to be made invisible. They have learned the lessons of the information war that was waged against them in Mali and Niger. In 2022, Operation Barkhane ended without another officially succeeding it. “What are the operations in Africa called? They don't have a name. And what does the press do in this case? She doesn't talk about it anymore.”joked a senior officer a few weeks ago. However, cooperation continued. Offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, the Corymbe mission fights against illegal fishing and trafficking that finances terrorism. Ten tons of cocaine were seized last spring. The general staff also continues to monitor, with very limited resources from now on, the extension of the jihadist threat to the Sahel.