Ivory Coast President: The withdrawal of French forces from Ivory Coast will be in 2025
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara announced that his country has decided on a coordinated and organized withdrawal of French forces from its territory, adding that the French military base in Abidjan will be handed over to Ivory Coast in January.
In a New Year’s address to Ivorians, Ouattara indicated that “Camp 43, Marine Infantry Battalion in Port Bouet (a municipality of Abidjan) will be handed over to the Ivorian Armed Forces as of January 2025”.
Ouattara explained that this camp will be renamed “General Ouattara Thomas Daquin”, the first Chief of Staff of the Ivorian Army.
The Ivorian president said his citizens could be proud of the modernization of their armed forces, and he also spoke about the presidential elections scheduled for October 2025, stressing that they would be “peaceful, transparent and democratic,” without commenting on the possibility of his candidacy for a fourth term.
Ouattara’s new position on the French military presence in his country comes after Paris handed over the first military base to Chad in the Faya region in the far north of the country on December 26, following the country’s cancellation of the military cooperation agreement with France.
Senegal also announced that it wouldn’t allow French forces to continue to remain on its territory, because this would be inconsistent with sovereignty and independence.
Before that, French forces were expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and relations between France and these countries became tense after a series of coups in the three countries that overthrew civilian presidents who were allies of Paris.
