Last 47 French troops left the Central African Republic
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Bangui's ex-colonizer has left the airport.
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The last 47 French soldiers seen leaving the Central African Republic, at Bangui airport on December 15, 2022 before boarding a C130 cargo plane. (AFP)
The last French troops - 47 in total - in the Central African Republic left the country on Thursday as the country draws closer ties with Russia, according to an AFP reporter.
Forty-seven troops from logistical support left the capital's airport in Bangui, which rendered them the last troops to leave from among a 130-person contingent.
France, CAF's former colonizer, sent 1,600 French troops to the country after a 2013 coup d'etat in the name of "stabilizing the country" amid a civil war. This would mark Paris' 7th military intervention since the country's independence in 1960, with the operation called Operation Sangaris.
Paris last year took the decision to suspend military cooperation, accusing the CAF of embarking on an anti-French campaign allegedly steered by Moscow.
"France decided that the conditions were no longer appropriate for us to continue working for the benefit of the Central African armed forces," General Francois-Xavier Mabin, the commander of the MISLOG logistical force, told AFP.
French troops at Bangui's airport's M'Poko base have been providing logistical support for the European Union Training Mission and a contingent of the UN peacekeeping mission in MINUSCA. MINUSCA is one of the largest and most costly United Nations missions, which carried on with its operations with a record number of 14,400 soldiers and 2,420 officers, according to a 2021 resolution.
Roland Marchal, a researcher at the Sciences Po school in Paris, called the French pullout a "very strong sign of discontent."
France also withdrew its troops from Mali earlier this year, an expression of growing disapproval of France in Africa.
Foreign aircraft targets troops and Russian allies
In late November, the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) announced that "a plane coming from a neighboring country bombed at night a camp containing Russian soldiers and allies in the north and left, causing only damage."
The government said in a statement that the plane "dropped explosives in the city of Bossangoa, targeting a base for our defense forces and those of our allies, as well as a cotton factory."
The aircraft, according to reports, exited CAR from the north, towards Chad, following the raid, noting that "the explosives caused major material damage."
It is noteworthy that the Minister of Mines and Geology of the CAR, Rufin Benam-Beltoungou, said in a previous statement that "Russia helped his country to recover 90% of its lands that were in the grip of armed groups."
"People used to say that 80% of the territory is under the control of armed groups, and today I can tell you that the government, with its Russian and Rwandan allies, has been able to restore state sovereignty over most of the territory of the Central African Republic," Benam-Beltoungou said, on the sidelines of the Saint-Petersburg International Economic Forum.
