Ivory Coast takes control of last French military base as Paris pares back its West Africa footprint

# Ivory Coast takes control of last French military base as Paris pares back its West Africa footprint

*Event date: 2025-02-20*

Ivory Coast has taken control of its last remaining French military base, marking another step in France’s retreat from a once-dominant military posture across West Africa.

According to AP, the handover took place in Abidjan as most French forces departed the country. French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said about 80 French servicemen will remain in Ivory Coast to advise and train the Ivorian military, but the era of a permanent French base is ending.

Lecornu tried to frame the move as transformation rather than withdrawal. “France is transforming its presence. France is not disappearing,” he said, arguing that the defense relationship had to adapt to a changing security environment and to what he described as new realities and threats. That language suggests Paris wants to preserve influence even as the visible footprint shrinks.

Ivorian Defense Minister Téné Birahima Ouattara described the handover as a new stage in friendship and strategic cooperation between the two countries. That tone points to a managed transition rather than a rupture, at least in public. Still, the symbolism is clear: France no longer anchors the country’s defense posture the way it once did.

The AP report placed the Ivory Coast handover inside a larger regional shift. France has been asked to leave several West African countries in recent years, including Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Chad. Across much of the region, the pressure on French forces has reflected changing public sentiment and the political fallout from coups and military rule.

The report said France has now been asked to leave more than 70 percent of African countries where it maintained troop deployments after colonial rule ended. Its remaining major presences are now concentrated in Djibouti and Gabon, far from the West African positions that once defined Paris’s role in the Sahel.

This withdrawal matters beyond symbolism. France’s military posture in Africa had long been a pillar of its geopolitical influence, but that influence has weakened as local governments seek new partners and publics question the legacy of French intervention. In some places, Russia has moved in as an alternative security interlocutor, though the AP noted that security conditions in states that expelled French troops have often worsened.

For Ivory Coast, the immediate question is whether the new advisory model will be enough to preserve cooperation without triggering the resentments that have pushed French troops out elsewhere. For France, the handover is another sign that its African strategy is being rewritten under pressure.