Published on
ADVERTISEMENT
It is the end of the permanent presence of the French army in Senegal after more than six decades.
Paris sold this military base in Dakar this Thursday in this West African country on Thursday, as part of a wider disengagement of the old colonizing power on the African continent.
During a solemn ceremony in Dakar, the last two French installations in Senegal – the “Camp Geille”, located in the Senegalese capital, and the French aeronautical stopover at the nearby airport – were given to the chief of staff of the Armies of Senegal, General Mbaye Cissé, by General Pascal Ianni, commander of the French army in Africa.
End of a withdrawal engaged in March
This return ended 65 years of French military presence in Senegal, which has remained a faithful ally of France since its independence in 1960.
More Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Fayeelected in 2024 on a program of “rupture”, demanded last year from France that she withdrew from the country from 2025.
“Senegal is an independent country, it is a sovereign country and sovereignty does not accommodate the presence of military bases in a sovereign country”he said in November 2024, while specifying that Dakar would defend a “Renovated partnership” with Paris.
Thursday ceremony fence A process initiated in Marchand marks the end of the French military presence in West and Central Africa.
Since 2022, Paris has indeed retired from Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, while its permanent base in Gabon has been transformed into “shared camp” managed jointly by the two countries.
France still has a base of 1,500 people in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, which Paris now wishes to use as “Projection point” for her “missions” on the continent After removing the Sahel.
