The French government has confirmed the departure from the Central African Republic (CAR) of its last soldiers deployed in the country following the breakdown of its military cooperation with Bangui, in the midst of bilateral tensions over the presence in the country of mercenaries from the Wagner Group, owned by an oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
«On December 15, the last French military personnel under national command present in CAR as part of the logistics mission left the country aboard a military aircraft bound for Paris,» the French Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
It stressed that «this mission, which mobilized nearly 130 French military personnel, no longer has any operational justification». «The M’Poko camp was handed over on December 13 on good terms to the Central African authorities,» it said.
«This logistical and administrative maneuver took place with transparency and in constant contact with the Central African authorities,» he stressed, while confirming that it was «closely coordinated» with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR (MINUSCA) and the European Union Training Mission in CAR (EUTM-RCA), which also use these facilities.
The French Ministry of Defense has emphasized that «until just before their departure, the French military continued to carry out their logistical mission, as well as their actions in support of the Central African population, mainly in favor of the youth».
Thus, the French Army has left the African country after 62 years of continuous presence through its logistic mission, installed at the airport of the capital, Bangui. France suspended its military cooperation agreement with CAR in April 2021 and the EU froze in December 2021 its training missions supported by the logistics mission, which also supports soldiers deployed in MINUSCA and the EU Training Mission.
The African country has been plunged into a serious crisis following the elimination of the 2020 presidential candidacy of former President François Bozizé, who returned to the country at the end of 2019 to run again for the presidency, a position he left in 2014 in the face of the uprising of the predominantly Muslim Séléka rebels.
The elimination of Bozizé’s candidacy led to the creation of the armed alliance Coalition Patriots for Change (CPC) -currently led by the former president-, which triggered an armed conflict in which the CAR Army was also supported by Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group.
