-Analysis-
PARIS – It’s a powerful symbol. Djibouti, the former French territory in the Horn of Africa across from the Arabian Peninsula, is the site of the last significant French military base on the continent and, in fact, the largest outside France itself. It has withstood not only the decisions of several African nations to end French military presence on their soil but also the ongoing review of France’s military deployments.
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The explanation is simple: Djibouti is not oriented toward Africa but toward the sea — the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Middle East, and its conflicts, particularly threats to navigation. Djibouti’s port has also turned foreign military presence into an economic model. Alongside the 1,500 French troops, there are Americans, Chinese, Italians and Japanese. It’s an unusual coexistence, but one that benefits everyone involved.
French President Emmanuel Macron is therefore visiting, on Friday, the only French base that remains unchanged while everything else shifts. There’s little comfort to be found there: France’s presence on the continent has suffered a crushing defeat in its former “backyard,” a setback that the shift toward the rest of Africa cannot compensate for. And 2024 will be remembered as the year of the final blow, marking the end of six decades of history.
The year of the final blow
The network of French military bases is a historical legacy. No other colonial power maintained such close ties with its former colonies, a system put in place by President Charles de Gaulle and his “Mr. Africa,” Jacques Foccart. For a long time, these bases served as “life insurance” for regimes friendly to France.
French soldiers gradually became a symbol of neo-colonial presence.
With the jihadist push in the Sahel starting in 2014, French presence expanded but without the expected success in the face of armed groups that spread terror. Welcomed as liberators in Mali, French soldiers gradually became a symbol of neo-colonial presence, particularly in the eyes of the youth.
The paradox is that when Macron arrived at the Élysée presidential palace, he was aware of the need to transform this presence, as he stated in a major speech in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2017. Yet he failed to evolve it in time and ended up reacting to events instead of initiating them.
Rebuilding the relationship
There were two highly visible signs of French influence: the military and the CFA franc, the common currency of former French colonies. The military presence is nearly over; abruptly so, as the report commissioned by Jean-Marie Bockel (the president’s “personal envoy” to Africa) on adjustments to the system was outdated before it was even read.
The CFA franc remains, having been reformed. But it continues to symbolize dependence, even though it has never prevented African states from having more economic relations with China than with France.
Rebuilding a relationship between France and Africa should be a priority for Paris, provided new tools and more equal relations are reinvented. It’s uncertain whether there is the imagination and will for this today.
In the meantime, French traces are fading. In Bamako, Mali, the military junta has just renamed Ruault Avenue, named after a former colonial officer, as Sékou Touré Street, after Guinea’s first president — and the man who said “no” to de Gaulle in 1958. One symbol replaces another.
