As Emmanuel Macron begins a tour of several Central African countries, the Head of State announced a change in the French military presence on the continent. The French system should be reviewed in depth, with the key to a drastic reduction in staff.
Faced with an increasingly contested presence, the Élysée makes the choice of a military deployment passing below the visibility threshold. Concretely, the military camps in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon should see their numbers drop by 70%, with no more than 300 soldiers per base in the future.
On the other hand, the 2,000 french soldiers present in Chad and Niger are not concerned at this stage, nor is there any reduction in sight for the Djibouti camp.
The rearticulation of the device will therefore be concentrated in West Africa, where the French military presence should be transformed into military academies. Bilateral discussions are underway, but the very significant reduction in staff seems to have been recorded and could worry African, but also European and American partners, who until now have lent Paris a role as a security provider in the region.
This change also poses a logistical problem for the French military: how to intervene effectively in the event of a crisis with so few men on the ground? And if it is necessary to intervene from France with aerial means, worry senior officers, it will then be necessary to have on hand a lot of planes.