Senegal Says it’s Closing ‘All Foreign Military Bases,’ a Move Aimed at French Troops in the Country

By BABACAR DIONE and WILSON MCMAKIN

1:54 PM EST, December 27, 2024

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal’s prime minister said on Friday that the government is closing “all foreign military bases,” an announcement essentially aimed at France, the West African nation’s former colonial power.

Although Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko did not specifically name French troops, no other foreign forces have military bases in Senegal.

France has suffered similar setbacks in several West African countries in recent years, including Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso, where French troops that have been on the ground for many years have been kicked out.

Sonko made the announcement during a general policy statement to the National Assembly, without providing a timeline for the exit of the French troops. It comes a month after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said there would soon be no more French soldiers on Senegalese soil.

“The President of the Republic has decided to close all foreign military bases in the very near future,” Sonko said.

France’s military and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to the announcement.

A former colonial power in much of Africa, France has faced opposition from some African leaders over what they described as a demeaning and heavy-handed approach to the continent.

France, which has already left coup-hit countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, on Thursday confirmed it has handed over the first of several bases to Chad.

France’s permanent military presence in Chad ″no longer met the expectations and interests of each party,″ the military said, and called the withdrawal a part of a ″reconfiguration of its system in Africa″ since 2022.

Paris has said earlier that France aims to sharply reduce its presence at all its bases in Africa except Djibouti, including the 350 French troops who are in Senegal. It has said that it may instead provide defense training or targeted military support, based on needs expressed by those countries, according to the officials.

Senegal’s new government, which has been in power for less than a year, has taken a hard-line stance on the presence of French troops as part of a larger regional backlash against what many see as the legacy of an oppressive colonial empire.