The Residual Empire

After Françafrique

Following yesterday’s article, “The End of Françafrique,” I received a number of requests for further analysis and additional detail. What follows is an expanded examination of the subject.

France maintains an entire corps of military advisers across Africa. Yet at the same time, it is steadily losing its visible military footprint on the continent.

Chad has terminated its 2019 military cooperation agreement with Paris — the last Sahel country to host a French contingent of roughly one thousand troops. Senegal has announced a similar decision. Dakar had long been considered one of France’s most reliable pillars in West Africa. The withdrawal of troops will not immediately dismantle economic ties. But the loss of bases in the Sahel is unmistakably one of the major foreign policy reversals of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

The timing was deliberate. Chad’s foreign minister announced the termination one day after a visit by France’s new foreign minister. Paris likely intended to reduce its presence gradually and on its own terms. Instead, it was shown the door.

Senegal’s move carried historical symbolism. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye declared that a country hosting foreign troops cannot consider itself fully sovereign. He promised French forces would soon leave. The statement was made on the anniversary of the 1944 Thiaroye massacre, when French troops killed hundreds of Senegalese soldiers who had fought for France in World War II. France acknowledged responsibility, but refused compensation and full archival transparency. In Africa, history does not expire.

Yet to understand the present contraction, one must examine the system that preceded it.

The Architecture of Françafrique

Independence for former colonies was granted largely on Paris’s conditions. France retained military access, preserved economic leverage, controlled the issuance of the CFA franc, and held substantial portions of foreign reserves of francophone West African states. Political elites of newly independent countries were woven into informal networks linking them directly to Paris.

This system became known as Françafrique.

Critics described it as neo-colonialism. Each new French administration promised to dismantle it. None fundamentally did. The structure endured for more than half a century and survived multiple crises.

Leaders who attempted to break decisively with it — Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso being the most emblematic example — rarely remained in power long. After their removal, the system typically reasserted itself.

Africa is not a peripheral theater for Paris. Since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, the continent has occupied a privileged place in French strategic thinking. Alongside Europe, it has been one of the primary axes of French external policy. Influence in Africa contributed materially to France’s postcolonial status as a great power — through resource access, markets, political networks, and international leverage.

The 2020–2024 Crisis

Between 2020 and 2024, Françafrique entered its deepest crisis.

Following the outbreak of jihadist violence after Mali’s 2012 civil conflict, France deployed substantial forces under Operation Barkhane. Troops were sent first to Mali in 2013, then expanded to Niger and Burkina Faso.

They did not eliminate the insurgent threat.

By the early 2020s, frustration had accumulated. Then came the wave of coups: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger. Governments aligned with Paris were removed. New military leaderships declared their intention to seek alternative security arrangements and distance themselves from the former metropole.

The Élysée Palace neither anticipated nor prevented the collapse of friendly regimes. Nor did it produce an effective formula for damage control. Historically, Paris would either intervene directly or negotiate pragmatically with new rulers through formal and informal emissaries. This time, neither approach worked.

Macron’s Africa policy reflected, in many respects, the logic of his domestic political style — managerial, reformist, rhetorically ambitious. It did not translate well into the African security environment.

Formal military presence contracted rapidly. Bases in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger — gone. Chad — now gone. Senegal — preparing departure.

From five Sahel leaders Macron met in 2020, only Mauritania’s president remains in office. The political landscape has shifted decisively.

The Economic Core Remains

Yet France has not been fully expelled.

Even the most radical Sahel governments have not dismantled the monetary architecture. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso left ECOWAS in early 2025, but they remain within the West African Monetary Union. They continue to use the CFA franc — a currency system historically tied to French financial oversight.

Previous attempts to abandon the CFA system in earlier decades failed due to instability of alternative financial frameworks. Today, with ongoing conflict and shadow economic flows outside major urban centers, Sahel governments lack sufficient institutional capacity and resources to construct a viable alternative monetary order. Security priorities dominate.

Full economic displacement of French companies has not occurred — even in the most confrontational states. In less radical francophone countries, economic cooperation continues despite growing competition from China, Turkey, the Gulf states and others.

For Paris, preserving economic leverage is now the primary objective. If military-political dominance cannot be restored, economic continuity must at least be secured.

The Quiet Mechanism

And then there is the quieter instrument.

The Directorate for Security and Defense Cooperation (DCSD), operating within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, trains and advises senior officers across nearly twenty African countries. It does not deploy battalions. It does not generate dramatic headlines. But it works continuously.

Each year, hundreds of African officers and officials pass through its courses, seminars and training programs. West and Central Africa remain traditional spheres — Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Cameroon. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has seen particularly active engagement.

Where bases are expelled, instructors often remain. Where formal presence shrinks, institutional relationships persist.

This is influence of the long game. Project by project. Relationship by relationship. Over several years, networks of professionally socialized officers emerge. Not necessarily ideological proxies — but individuals accustomed to operating within French security frameworks.

Military diplomacy converts relatively modest expenditure into future access to those who control armed structures. And this stratum has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to determine political outcomes.

Strategic Limits

Still, structural realities remain.

France today lacks the resources to restore the level of influence it enjoyed in the early post-independence decades. African states now have diversified external options. Russia, China, Turkey, Gulf actors — the field is more crowded. The monopoly is gone.

Macron’s administration is therefore searching for partial preservation rather than restoration.

The colonial system cannot be rebuilt. The visible empire has receded. But the residual networks — monetary, institutional, advisory — remain operational.

The empire no longer advances through columns of troops. It survives through currency systems, training programs, commercial contracts, and personal networks.

Bases can be expelled.

Advisers are more difficult.

Financial architecture is more difficult still.

The question is not whether Françafrique has been wounded. It clearly has.

The question is whether the residual empire can endure in a continent increasingly determined to diversify its alignments — and whether Paris has the strategic patience, and resources, to operate in that new reality.