A recent military takeover in Niger has thrown into uncertainty the future of France’s presence in West and Central Africa, raising doubts about the future of U.S. military involvement there, too.

Read more France to reduce troops in West and Central Africa to 600, say sources “For our partners, what matters tomorrow is not the number of soldiers. There will be the personnel needed to ...

France is under fire in parts of West Africa for its alleged "stranglehold" on the continent's economy. Anti-French sentiment in Mali has spread to Burkina Faso where opinion leaders accuse the ...

Unlike other former colonial powers, France kept permanent military bases in Africa long after the continent’s countries won their independence. At times it acted as a regional gendarme ...

French forces killed the leader of the West African ISIS affiliate in a drone strike in southern Mali in August. French authorities described Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi as "enemy No. 1" in the region.

France and West African leaders agreed on Tuesday to step up the fight against Islamic extremists in the Sahel by maintaining a strong French military presence, deploying a new Chadian battalion ...

Ivory Coast is the latest country in West Africa to ask French troops to leave for good. It follows similar decisions by Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal and Chad. We analyse France's shrinking ...

France Bids Adieu to Its Military Mission in West Africa But banishing the neocolonial approach is easier said than done. By Michele Barbero , an Italian journalist based in Paris.

Despite France's counter-terrorism operation, militants are still a major problem in the vast Sahel region of West Africa Moreover, the situation in the Sahel has deteriorated into a festering wound.

Hence, France was able to reconfigure the region’s militaries and politics to remain under the direct control of France, which presented itself as West Africa’s savior in the face of terrorism.

France’s military intervention in Mali to root out Islamist militants evokes memories of when the French ruled a vast empire across much of West Africa. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the ...

In 2014, France launched Operation Barkhane and, within a year, rolled back jihadist gains and confined the insurgents to a few remote pockets deep in the country’s interior.