This is a historic turning point. This Tuesday, two Mirage 2000-Ds took off from the Kossei air base in N’Djamena, symbolically sealing the start of the withdrawal of French forces from Chad. “ The presence of this detachment is no longer justified after the termination of the agreement », Confirmed a French source to AFP. This event follows the decision of the Chadian authorities, announced on November 28, to end the security and defense agreements signed with France, only a few hours after the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
« France is an essential partner, but it must understand that Chad has grown », declared Abderaman Koulamallah, Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs. If the form of the announcement was surprising, it was the substance of the subject that the French army was taken by surprise: “It was a real surprise for us, no signal had been sent to say that it was going to end like that…”explains to JDD a well-informed source from the Ministry of the Armed Forces. “Before this decision, dialogue was regular between the Chadian and French authorities”she assures.
The response from the General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMA) therefore did not take long, noting his departure then announcing the imminent closure of the infrastructures and the return of the Mirages to Nancy, their home base in France. On site, nearly 1,000 French soldiers were still mobilized. A system which will be gradually dismantled over the coming weeks, while the Defense agreements between the two countries had structured military cooperation dating from the country’s independence in 1960.
“Since we left Niger, terrorist attacks have increased”
Chad, long considered a pillar of French military strategy in West Africa, had become Paris’s last anchor point in the Sahel after the forced withdrawals of its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Thus, this departure comes in a complex context for Chad which faces numerous challenges: humanitarian crisis linked to Sudanese refugees, management of the devastating consequences of unprecedented flooding and attacks by the jihadist group Boko Haram.
On this last point, a diplomatic source expressed to the JDD his concern about the future of Chad, citing the recent example of the departure of Niger, which is a border country. “Since we left, terrorist attacks have increased; It’s no surprise to anyone.”. Thus, last June, twenty soldiers and one civilian were killed, in western Niger, in an attack perpetrated by a “coalition of armed terrorist groups”announced the Ministry of Defense in a press release read on national television, Télé Sahel.
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Finally, this unexpected departure from Chad could be seen as good news for the finances of the armies. Since the censorship of the Barnier government, and while the 2025 budget has still not been voted on, the military envelope for next year remains weakened by a shortfall of 3.3 billion euros. This unforeseen deficit is added to the cost of external operations (Opex), which were not included in previous military programming laws (LPM). “We must think lucidly about France’s interests. Being present in N’Djamena represented a significant burden for the French army, and this budget could be reallocated to other theaters”concludes a senior officer.
In 2023, while France was still present in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the cost of Opex amounted to more than a billion euros. This year, while Paris left these countries, the army’s initial budget provided for a reduction of 400 million euros in external operations: 800 million euros provisioned instead of 1.2 billion in 2023.
In Africa, French forces are still prepositioned in Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon and Djibouti. For how long?
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