France no longer has a military base in the Sahel or West Africa.
The last one—Camp Geille in Dakar and its airfield at Dakar airport—was handed back to Senegal on 17 July 2025. It was France’s largest installation in the country, and its return ended 65 years of permanent military presence there.
The withdrawals were spread over 35 months. Mali in August 2022. Burkina Faso in February 2023. Niger in December 2023. Chad in January 2025. Côte d’Ivoire in February 2025. Senegal in July 2025.
As of October 2026, France’s only pre-positioned force in Africa is in Djibouti—1,500 personnel. It keeps two joint liaison detachments of 100 personnel each, one in Côte d’Ivoire and one in Gabon. That is what remains of the “pré carré”—the sphere of influence France once treated as its own.
The reasons differ by country. Coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Diplomatic ruptures. Sovereignty movements that made French bases politically impossible. But the result is the same across the region: the French flag is no longer flying over a base in the Sahel or West Africa.
France has not left the continent. It is still in Djibouti. It still trains with Ivorian and Gabonese forces—this month it is running a joint exercise with them. But the architecture of permanent bases that defined its African policy since independence is gone.
A military presence that lasted for generations ended not with a war, but with a series of flags being lowered and keys being handed over.