Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby expressed indignation after French President Emmanuel Macron’s words about Africa’s alleged ingratitude for assistance in the fight against terrorism, noting that the French president “was in the wrong era.”
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Previously, Macron reproached African countries for “forgetting to say thank you” to Paris for the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.
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“I would like to express my indignation at the words recently expressed by President Macron, which border on disdain for Africa and Africans. I think he has the wrong era,” the Chadian president said in a statement published on his office’s Facebook page.
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Earlier, the Prime Minister of Senegal, after reproaching Macron, spoke about the destabilizing role of France in Africa. The Chadian Foreign Ministry accused Macron of disdain for Africa and Africans.
In recent years, France has been forced to withdraw its troops from a number of African countries. In 2022, the French military, which had been present in the Sahel region since 2014 as part of the anti-terrorism Operation Barkhane, was forced to leave Mali. In March 2023, the authorities of Burkina Faso announced the denunciation of the military assistance treaty with France, concluded more than 60 years ago.
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The Foreign Ministry of Burkina Faso also notified the French side that the French military must leave the country. After the coup in Niger in 2023, the rebels demanded the expulsion of the French ambassador and announced the denunciation of military agreements with France, demanding the withdrawal of its troops, which ended on December 22. At the end of January 2024, the Monde newspaper reported that France would significantly reduce its military contingents in Gabon, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. At the end of November 2024, the Chadian Foreign Ministry announced that the country’s government was terminating the defense cooperation agreement with France. The Foreign Ministry demanded the withdrawal of the French military contingent from the country. The first 120 troops left Chad at the end of December.
