France Just Got Kicked Out of West Africa

The End for Empire, The Start of Something New

It finally happened.

After centuries of looting, rigging economies, and pretending to be Africa’s savior while bleeding it dry, France just got told to pack up and get the hell out. One by one, West African nations: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Ivory Coast, have slammed the door on French troops, French military bases, and, let’s be honest, French neocolonial exploitation.

This is a seismic shift, a long-overdue rejection of the parasitic relationship that’s defined “Françafrique” since the so-called end of colonialism. If things keep moving the way they are, we may be witnessing the birth of a real West African union, a kind of United States of West Africa. One rooted not in Western “partnership,” but in sovereignty, mutual aid, and a big, flaming middle finger to imperial leftovers.

The French military presence wasn’t about fighting terrorism, it was about control. Operation Barkhane, that noble-sounding “counterterrorism” campaign? A decade of French boots on the ground did nothing to stop jihadist insurgencies, if anything, they got worse.

What it did do was give France a reason to keep military bases sprinkled all over the Sahel like it still owned the place.