Ivory Coast has officially ordered French troops to leave the country this month of January after decades of French military presence on West African soil.

This new development makes Côte d’Ivoire the latest African nation to expel troops and cut military ties with its former colonial master.

During his New Year’s address to the nation (Ivory Coast) on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, President Alassane Ouattara said the 43rd BIMA marine infantry battalion at Port-Bouet in Abidjan, where French troops were stationed, will be handed over to Ivory Coast’s armed forces in January 2025.

“We can be proud of our army, whose modernization is now effective. It is in this context that we have decided on the concerted and organized withdrawal of French forces from Ivory Coast,” Ouattara said.

He also added that the 43rd BIMA, which has been stationed on the West African coast since 1978 under defense agreements signed with France, will be renamed Camp Ouattara Thomas Aquin after the first Chief of Staff of the Ivory Coast’s army.

France has now been kicked out of more than 70 percent of African former colonies where it had a military presence since the end of her colonial rule in the 1960s and 70s.

Since his communication, French armies now remain only in Djibouti, with approximately 1,500 soldiers; Gabon with 350 personnel; and Chad that had earlier announced French troops departure in November, 2024.

Due to increased local sentiments against French troops presence in West Africa, Ivory Coast have now joined countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger that have already expelled French troops from their soils.