“The government of the Republic of Chad informs national and international opinion of its decision to terminate the defense cooperation agreement signed with the French Republic,” declared Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah on the ministry's Facebook page on Thursday, November 28 evening. An announcement made a few hours after a visit by the head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot to this country which has become Paris' last anchor point in the Sahel after the forced withdrawals of its troops in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
“France is an essential partner, but it must also now consider that Chad has grown, has matured and that Chad is a sovereign state and very jealous of its sovereignty,” had already noted the minister a little earlier following a meeting between President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno and his French counterpart.
A “historic turning point” according to the Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Last May, three years of transition ended in N'Djamena with the election of Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, brought to power by a military junta after the death of his father Idriss Déby killed by rebels at the front. Threatened, Déby senior received support from the French army to repel them in 2008 and then in 2019.
“It’s not a break with France like Niger or elsewhere,” assured AFP Abderaman Koulamallah, whose country still hosts around a thousand French soldiers. In September 2023, Emmanuel Macron announced the departure of French troops from Niger, after two months of a diplomatic skirmish with the military in power since the July coup d'état.
“After 66 years of the proclamation of the Republic of Chad, it is time for Chad to assert its full sovereignty, and to redefine its strategic partnerships according to national priorities,” said the minister again, pointing to a decision, which marks a “historical turning point”, “taken after in-depth analysis”and assuring that the visit of Jean-Noël Barrot had made it possible to strengthen bilateral relations “at all levels”.
Jean-Noël Barrot, who was in Chad, before going to Ethiopia, to visit the Sudanese refugee camps and take stock of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Sudan, had still not reacted to this announcement on Friday, no more than the Ministry of the Armed Forces also contacted by the AFP. On Monday, however, Emmanuel Macron's personal envoy to Africa, Jean-Marie Bockel, submitted to the French president his report on the reconfiguration of the French military system in Africa, which advocates a partnership “renewed” et “co-constructed”according to the Élysée.
A reconfiguration which is further accelerating while the President of Senegal Bassirou Diomaye Faye for his part indicated, also on Thursday, November 28, that France would have to close its military bases there. “Senegal is an independent country, it is a sovereign country and sovereignty does not accommodate the presence of a military base in a sovereign countryhe said, in an interview with AFP. Only France has a presence like it has in Senegal. »
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