The French Army will leave the Central African Republic after 62 years of presence

Oct. 7 () –

The last 130 soldiers of the French logistics mission deployed in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), will leave the country at the end of the year, as confirmed by local French authorities to the Ministry of Defense of that nation.

The French Army will leave the Central African Republic after 62 years of continuous presence through its logistics mission, installed at the airport in the capital, Bangui, according to the newspaper ‘Ouest-France’.

After announcing the withdrawal of its forces from Mali due to tensions with the military junta in the African country, France has accused Bangui of allying with the Wagner Group, owned by a Russian businessman linked to the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.

France suspended its military cooperation agreement with the Central African Republic in April 2021, and the European Union froze its training missions supported by the logistics mission, which also supports soldiers deployed in MINUSCA and the EU Training Mission, in December 2021, as recalled by the Radio France Internationale (RFI) station.

The African country has been plunged into a serious crisis as a result of the elimination of the 2020 presidential candidacy of former President François Bozizé, who returned to the country at the end of 2019 to once again be a candidate for the Presidency, a position he abandoned in 2014 before the rise of the Séléka rebels, predominantly Muslims.

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 would also have support of Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group.