By
Ezra Nnko
Africa-Press – Tanzania. “We can be proud of our army; whose modernization is now effective. It is in this context that we have decided on the concerted and organized withdrawal of French forces”, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara.
On January 01, 2025, President Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast announced the exit of French troops in his country. Ivory Coast became the sixth African country recently to expel the French soldiers, following in the footsteps of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Senegal. According to President Ouattara, the “handing over” decision had been made after ensuring that the modernized Ivory Coast armed forces would be able to handle the previous French operations in the country.
In recent years, France has been losing its grip in Africa; this threatens to end its 60 years of influence in most Western African countries. It was highly anticipated that the military regimes of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger would expel French troops due to their turbulent relations with France since they came into power. However, it was less likely for Senegal and Ivory Coast, the “France-African Watchdog,” to exit the French troops.
The France in Africa
The CFA Franc and Africa
“Let us note that France has neither the capacity nor the legitimacy to ensure Africa’s security and sovereignty,” Senegal Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.
For more than 60 years, France dominated most of its former sub-Saharan African colonies through the Francafrique policy. The policy ensured the domination of France’s influence in Africa through politics and leadership, trade, finance, military, and economy.
In 1945, France created the CFA franc, which was pegged to the French franc and later to the euro. The currency is used in 14 African countries comprising 6 member states from Central Africa operating under the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) and 8 members from Western Africa under the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). Through the “agreement,” the African countries were required to deposit half of their foreign exchange reserves in the French Treasury under the special “Operating Account” and 20 percent of their financial liabilities; thus, the countries had to retain only 30 percent of their foreign reserves. This pegging to the French franc and euro, the CFA franc, has been mentioned as a stable currency with a lower inflation rate.
To control the CFA franc, the French appoint their officer, who has the veto power, directly to the Central Bank Board of Directors in BEAC or BCEACO to “ensure” the convertibility of the common currency.
Non-reciprocal, the BCEACO has no veto, financial strategic position, or whatsoever in the Banque de France to safeguard its GDP worth of 99,095.3 billion CFA Francs is secured under proper monetary policies to ensure economic prosperity. This signifies how France manipulates the monetary sovereignty of the CFA member states and hinders the economic growth in investment sectors such as agriculture, industry, infrastructure, and tourism.
The BCEACO or BEAC member states have to have a full mandate in the monetary policies within the Banque de France as a way of ensuring investors and stakeholders that they are reliable in their economy. This dependence creates an awkward situation for France’s competitive countries in Africa, such as China, Russia, and India, to highly invest in these countries due to the possibility of “fixation” of the CFA Franc country’s economy that might be done by France. As the total control of the monetary system is in Paris, the regulation of the CFA franc could also be used as a “political and economic fixation” of the anti-French African government.
Despite the CFA franc being pegged with the French franc and euro, thus ensuring plenty of reliable export markets, African member states are ranked lowest in the Economic Complexity Index. This is the result of the failure of states to produce diverse and complex varieties of products. For instance, in terms of trade, France trades at maximum with the non-CFA franc states in Africa compared with the African CFA franc countries. The major French trade partners in Africa are Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania, Algeria, and Tunisia, while the CFA franc members contribute less than 1 percent of France’s market.
Security and Africa
“None of them would be a sovereign country today if the French army had not deployed in the region,” French President Emmanuel Macron.
After the fall of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi in 2012 due to the illegal NATO-led coalition invasion under U.S. and French troops, the Sahel region erupted into chaos and insecurity. In securing its interest, France launched Operation Barkhane to counter the civil war and Islamic insurgency in a joint operation with G5 countries consisting of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger. Despite pouring more than 3,000 French soldiers, drones, armored vehicles, transport aircraft, helicopters, and fighter planes into the Sahel, the situation continued to worsen. The G5 had experienced 6 coups and coup attempts since the official launch of Operation Barkhane, with thousands of people reportedly killed due to the results of terrorist attacks, thousands of people internally displaced, and the humanitarian and food crisis reportedly worsened. Operation Barkhane in the Sahel was another proof of France’s military failure in Africa.
Suddenly the pro-France governments that advocated French military operations in the Sahel and West Africa were militarily overthrown beginning in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea. Even the election polls rejected incumbent President Macky Sarr, a well-known France sympathizer, in the 2024 Senegalese election. The PASTEF, an anti-France party under Ousmane Sonko, won the March 2024 election by 54 percent, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye became a Senegalese president later in November 2024. The party won another large majority in the legislative elections.
The Senegalese election pushed President Ouattara, another pro-France leader in West Africa, to suddenly switch sides and push French troops out of Ivory Coast due to the overwhelmingly anti-French sentiments in the country. President Ouattara is planning to run for the presidency in his fourth term.
France out of Africa: How did we arrive here?
“We left because there were coups d’état. We were there at the request of the sovereign states that had asked France to come. From the moment there were coups d’état, and when people said, ‘Our priority is no longer the fight against terrorism’… France no longer had a place there because we are not the auxiliaries of putschists. So we left.” French President Emmanuel Macron.
Since his election in 2017, President Emmanuel Macron has been trying to repaint France’s image in Africa. For years he has been insisting on France as a potential development partner rather than a colonizer, a view by many described as contradictory. After the July 2023 coup in Niger that ousted a pro-France president, Mohamed Bazoum, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna publicly stated France’s position in support of military intervention advocated by ECOWAS in Niger. It was loud and clear that France was ready to destabilize Niger and West Africa in preserving its interest.
A year later its anxiety came into reality when, in June 2024, the Niger government revoked the French state-owned nuclear firm Orano’s license to extract metal used for nuclear power and weapons from the Imouraren mine in northern Niger. Later on December 2024, the Orano company released a statement claiming Niger nationalized the Somair uranium mine which the company owned 63 percent of the shares.
For over four decades, France had been highly dependent on Niger uranium for its nuclear power plants. Niger is the second uranium exporter to France, as it contributes 20 percent of the 88,000 tons of uranium imported into France. 70 percent of France’s electricity is generated from nuclear energy.
France Military Expulsion
It began in 2013 when 1,600 French troops were dispatched to the Central African Republic under Operation Sangaris, launched to restore order and crack down on the civil unrest between the pro-government militia with Islamic affiliation known as Seleka and the Christian militia, Anti-Balaka. At some point France, under Operation Sangaris, managed to disarm the militias, control the religious tension, and conduct a peaceful transition to the UN peacekeeping mission, the MINUSCA. Operation Sangaris was the seventh French military operation in CAR since its independence.
The French troops didn’t walk away and instead stayed as logistical supporters for the European Union Training Mission and the contingent of MINUSCA. The MINUSCA didn’t do enough, so in 2018, the CAR and Russia signed the defense agreement. The agreement became the exit door for the remaining French troops. In 2022, France announced the exit of its last military troop from CAR. It was the end of French military operations in CAR for more than 40 years.
The New Geopolitical Player in Africa: France Out, Russia In
“I would like to reiterate that our country will continue to provide total support to our African friends in different sectors: ensuring sustainable development, the struggle against terrorism and extremism, combating epidemics, food problems, and the consequences of natural disasters.” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After the downfall of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, the geopolitics in the Sahel and northwestern Africa changed. Prior, the Sahel was under Gaddafi’s containment; thus, France operated under Gaddafi’s “permission” within the Sahel sphere. After the killing of Gaddafi, the Sahel erupted into volatility, and France failed to contain the region. Suddenly the region turned into insurgency, arms smuggling, civil wars, drug trade routes, human trafficking, and terrorism. The failure of France to secure the region thus allowed other state and non-state actors and players to intervene. The fall of Gaddafi had been translated as France digging its own grave in the Sahel.
France’s failure left a vacuum, and at the time the U.S. was hardly reinstating pro-U.S. administrations in the post-Arab Spring countries, while China’s non-interference policy was a “no-solution” to the region’s status quo. Then Russia stepped in and began filling the vacuum. It was an important opportunity for Russia after the sanctions imposed due to its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
In 2017, CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera signed a defense agreement with Russia, then the winds moved toward Libya, and it was reported the Russian government was supporting the Libyan National Army under General Khalifa Haftar.
In 2019, Russia conducted the First Russia-Africa Summit, which was successfully attended by 43 African heads of state in Sochi under the motto “For Peace, Security, and Development.”
Then the sphere of influence gradually increased. The insecurity due to terrorism insurgency sparked the overthrow of the pro-France regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The administration in power requested Russian military cooperation. Russia provided equipment, military personnel, trainers, and advisers. In September 2024, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger announced their deal with Russia to acquire telecom and surveillance satellites in their battle against Islamic insurgency.
In February 2024, Russia shipped 200,000 tons of free grain to six African countries after what President Putin promised during the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit as humanitarian assistance. The countries recipients of the grain were Somalia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, and the Central African Republic.
There is an ongoing nuclear partnership with several African countries in building nuclear power plants for electricity supplies. Some of the African countries that signed the agreements are Algeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Morocco, Burkina Faso, and Mali. South Africa is the only African country that produces nuclear power plant electricity.
Russia has just begun cementing its presence in Africa, although less can be listed as an achievement yet. The Ukraine-Russia conflict to some extent has weakened Russia’s international operations, especially in defense and security. The ousting of Russia’s long-time ally, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, had been a case in point. The Israel-Hezbollah-Houthi war could jeopardize the defense functionality of Russia as a global player. The Middle East conflict could be worsening the security situation in the Sahel and Africa. For the Sahel to become secure and safe again, the Middle East has to be at peace and the Russia-Ukraine war has to end. This is due to the geostrategic position of Russia in defense and security in the region.
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