France is behind in Africa after Chad turned them down

France wants to drastically lower its military position in West and Central Africa, but this could go wrong, making the country even less powerful at a time when Russia is making progress.

This week, a French representative to President Emmanuel Macron gave him a report with ideas for how France could cut the number of troops it has in Chad, Gabon, and the Ivory Coast, where it has had troops for decades.

The report’s specifics have not been made public, but two sources have said that the plan is to reduce the number of troops from about 2,200 to 600. The sources said that Chad would keep the biggest group of French troops, which would be 300 instead of 1,000.

But on Thursday, the government of Chad suddenly ended its defense cooperation deal with France. This came as a surprise to French officials, as Chad had been a key Western partner in the fight against Islamic militants in the area. That could mean that French troops leave the whole country in central Africa.

The head of the Sahel Program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Mali, Ulf Laessing, said, “For France, it is the beginning of the end of their security engagement in central and western Africa.”

“Chad was the French army’s aircraft carrier and its main hub for logistics.” If there is no Chad, it will be very hard for the French army to keep up with its other missions.

In another hit to France, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said on French state TV on Thursday that it wasn’t right for 350 French forces to stay in his country.

France is going to look at its presence in West Africa again after having to pull its forces out of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger because of military coups that made people hate France.

However, officials say that it is also because Paris is focusing more on Europe because of the war in Ukraine and tightening budgets.

According to the sources, the review suggests that the French troops who are still in the area should focus on training, sharing information, and helping countries when they ask for it.

According to the two sources and other officials, Paris was shocked when Chad decided to end the joint deal. This had not been talked about before.

France wants to stay in Chad because it is helping to ease one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world right now in nearby Sudan. France did not say anything in public right away.

A French official who knows a lot about Chad said that the government of Chad seemed to think that France’s move to more than half its military force there was an insult. 

This person said that Chad also thought the French would no longer be able to protect the military government run by President Mahamat Idriss Deby.

Macron had supported Deby even though he was criticized since Deby took power after his father died. His father ruled Chad for 30 years until he was killed by rebels in 2021. A vote was made this year, and Deby won.

Chad’s foreign ministry said in a statement released Thursday evening that N’djamena wanted to fully assert its authority after more than 60 years of freedom from France. The statement came hours after the French foreign minister and his counterpart had visited the border with Sudan in eastern Chad.

It said that the move shouldn’t hurt the good relationship between the two countries in any way. A small group of U.S. special forces left Chad earlier this year while the U.S. looked at how it could work with the country better.

The French and American pullbacks from Africa are different from Russia’s and other countries’ growing impact on the region, such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. 

Russian hired guns help keep the military governments of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso in power and fight alongside them against Islamist rebels.

But French officials and other sources said it wasn’t likely that Russia would be able to use the French loss in Chad to its advantage, at least in the short term.

A French person who knows a lot about Chad said that Russia and Chad support different sides in the war in Sudan. Syria and the war in Ukraine are also very important to Russia’s forces.