Ivory Coast has becoming the latest African nation to withdraw French troops from the country after a long military presence.
President Alassane Ouattara said in an end-of-year address to the nation that the 43rd BIMA marine infantry battalion at Port-Bouet in Abidjan – where French troops were stationed – “will be handed over” to Ivory Coast’s armed forces as of January 2025.
In the speech, the President said “We can be proud of our army, whose modernization is now effective. It is in this context that we have decided on the concerted and organized withdrawal of French forces” from Ivory Coast.
France, whose colonial rule in West Africa ended in the 1960s, has nearly 1,000 soldiers in Ivory Coast, according to reports.
Ivory Coast is the latest West African nation to expel French troops after Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. In November, within hours of each other, Senegal and Chad also announced the departure of French soldiers from their soil.
