The president of Ivory Coast demands the French troops to leave

In keeping with the former colonial power’s military withdrawal from the region, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said on Tuesday that French forces would leave the West African country.

“Ivorians should be proud of the modernized state of their own armed forces,” Ouattara remarked in a speech to the country at the conclusion of the year.
“In this context, we have decided on the coordinated and organized withdrawal of French forces,” he stated.

According to sources who spoke to Reuters in November, France has been thinking of cutting its military force in West and Central Africa, including Ivory Coast, from about 2,200 soldiers to 600.

Following military takeovers in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger and the escalation of anti-French sentiment, France, whose colonial dominance in West Africa ended in the 1960s, has already withdrawn its troops from those nations.

A defense cooperation agreement with France was unexpectedly terminated in November by the government of Chad, a crucial Western partner in the fight against Islamic extremists in the region.