French President Emmanuel Macron has highlighted the significance of France's military base in Djibouti as essential to its Indo-Pacific strategy during a stop-over visit to the country, where he met with Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh.
President Macron has stressed the importance of France's military presence in Djibouti for the development of its strategy in the Indo-Pacific region on Saturday during a meeting with his Djiboutian counterpart Ismaïl Omar Guelleh.
"[France's] presence in Djibouti ... is also geared towards the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific, and our reaffirmed Indo-Pacific strategy, consolidated since the spring of 2018, could not be achieved without the French forces in Djibouti," Macron said during the visit, where he also visited French troops based there.
At a time when France has been forced to withdraw its troops from several African countries – particularly in the Sahel – the French president emphasised Djibouti's unique position.
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"We wanted to develop our model where, in many countries, we had established historical foundations. We wanted to rethink it," he declared.
"Djibouti is not part of this overall manoeuvre because, for decades, the very nature of our base here, of our operations, has been profoundly different," he added, stressing Djibouti's “security needs” as much as France's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
The Indo-Pacific covers a vast area of Asia and Oceania, including major emerging powers such as India and China.
It accounts for around 60 percent of the world's GDP, and France is present there through its overseas departments and territories, such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Mayotte and Reunion Island.
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'Projection point' for African missions
Addressing French troops with whom he shared a Christmas dinner on Friday, Macron said that the French base in Djibouti would be "reinvented as a projection point" for missions in Africa.
France has already been forced to evacuate its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2022 and 2023 after military juntas came to power.
A first contingent of 120 French soldiers also left Chad on Friday, which made a similar request on 29 November, as did Senegal.
Ismaïl Omar Guelleh recalled the "special relationship" with France, marked by the renewal of a defence partnership last July.
He also welcomed the signing on Saturday of two agreements concerning the construction of a new airport in Djibouti and the development of a space agency.
The two presidents discussed a number of regional issues, with Macron stressing the importance of implementing "a process of dialogue to put an end to the terrible conflict in Sudan", ravaged by a civil war that has pitted the army against paramilitaries.
