Chad and Senegal have criticised French President Emmanuel Macron after he said some African countries were ungrateful to France after it helped them combat jihadist insurgency in the Sahel.
On Monday, President Macron accused some African countries of “forgetting to tell us thank you” for the role the French military played in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.
Addressing the annual conference of French ambassadors in Paris, Mr Macron said that “no African country would be sovereign today if France had not deployed its army in the region.”
He was reacting to the withdrawal of French troops from Sahelian African countries.
Chad and Senegal, which announced the closure of French military bases in their countries last November, have not taken the French President’s statement lightly, with Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko and Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah firing back.
In a statement read on Chadian state television, Minister Koulamallah described the French President as having a “contemptuous attitude” towards Africa and Africans.
He said that Chad had no problem with France, but “French leaders must learn to respect the African people and recognise the value of their sacrifices.”
Chad was the only country still hosting a French military base in the Sahel region after Paris was forced to evacuate its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2022 and 2023 after military juntas took power in the countries, preferring Russia as a partner.
Cote d’Ivoire has also asked France to leave military bases on its territory.
Prime Minister Sonko described the French President’s declaration as “totally erroneous”.
Mr Macron refuted that France had been forced to withdraw from Africa and is losing control over territories on the continent, saying Paris was reorganising its strategic interest in the region.
“France is not in decline in Africa, it is simply lucid, it is reorganising itself,” the President said, adding that the departure of French troops was negotiated between the African countries that decreed it and France.
He added that it was out of politeness that France gave the African countries the first chance to make the announcement.
But Mr Sonko says Senegal took the decision independently.
“I want to say that, in the case of Senegal, this statement is totally wrong,” Mr Sonko said in a reaction on his official X handle. “No discussion or negotiation has taken place to date and the decision taken by Senegal stems from its sole will, as a free, independent and sovereign country.”
Referring specifically to the statement that “no African country would be sovereign today if France had not deployed troops to the region”, Mr Sonko stated that France has neither the capacity nor the legitimacy to guarantee Africa’s security and sovereignty.
“On the contrary, it has often contributed to destabilising certain African countries, such as Libya, with disastrous consequences noted for the stability and security of the Sahel,” Mr Sonko wrote.
Mr Koulamallah shared a similar view, criticising the interests of France in Africa saying that in the 60 years of its presence in Chad, “the French contribution has often been limited to its own strategic interests, without any real lasting impact for the development of the Chadian people.”
Both Mr Koulamallah and Mr Sonko highlighted the important role of African soldiers in the liberation of France during the two World Wars, which they say Paris has also never recognised.
“If African soldiers – sometimes forcibly mobilised, mistreated and ultimately betrayed – had not deployed during the Second World War to defend France, it would, perhaps still be German today,” Mr Sonko wrote.
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