Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who came to power in 2024 with an agenda of rupture, announced the end in 2025 of all French and foreign military presence on national soil.
The staff expects from the French State “to put people at the heart of negotiations by developing a social plan better than that of 2011”says a statement published on the occasion of a public meeting of a few hundred employees and subcontractors of the French army. Already at the time, hundreds of people had lost their jobs as part of a plan to reorganize the French army.
From Senegal, workers “are awaiting their redeployment in State services or failing to benefit from a support plan for their reintegration”declared Djibril Ndiaye, general secretary of the French Elements staff union in Senegal (EFS). The French military assets in Dakar and its outskirts directly employ around 170 people and employ between 400 and 500 people in total, including subcontractors.
Several local workers stressed to AFP their attachment to their employer and their concern for the future. They don’t want to be “the sacrificial lambs”say the unions. Mr. Ndiaye also said he wished “a peaceful and gradual departure while maintaining a new form of cooperation in the interest of both countries.”
Questioned by AFP, the commander of the EFS, Brigadier General Yves Aunis, worked to reassure. He indicated that as an employer, the French State was “very aware of the human issues and the impacts on Senegalese families, that he (complies) with Senegalese labor law, but that the starting conditions should be good”.
“There will be a layoff plan. There will be no pettiness”he said, recalling that the “civilian personnel of local recruitment” have always benefited from favorable conditions from the EFS. The negotiation should open in the coming weeks, when the timetable and conditions of withdrawal will have been clarified, he said.
After its independence in 1960, Senegal remained one of the most secure African allies of France, the former dominant colonial power in West Africa. But the new leaders in office since 2024 have promised to now treat France as equal to other foreign partners, in the name of regained sovereignty.
