Hundreds of people demonstrated in Chad on Friday to demand the withdrawal of French troops from the country, a week after the central African country ended a military agreement with its former colonizer.<\/p>\n
In the capital, N’Djamena, protesters chanted\u00a0“Chad for us, France out”\u00a0, some holding banners reading\u00a0“We don’t want to see a single Frenchman in Chad”\u00a0.<\/p>\n
Last week,\u00a0Chad\u00a0announced in a statement that it was ending a defense\u00a0cooperation agreement with France\u00a0in order to redefine its\u00a0strategic partnerships\u00a0based on national priorities. France has maintained about 1,000 troops in Chad, and the statement did not specify when they would leave.<\/p>\n
Some protesters went to a military airbase where French soldiers are stationed on Friday and demanded their departure. Others gathered in front of the French embassy, \u200b\u200bwhere they faced a heavy security cordon from the Chadian army protecting the embassy.<\/p>\n
“We no longer want the French presence in Chad\u00a0,” said former Minister of Public Health Dr. Hissein Massar.\u00a0“This protest will end when the French leave Chad\u00a0,” he added.<\/p>\n
Chad was one of the last countries in the region where France maintained a significant military presence, having been ousted in recent years from\u00a0Niger\u00a0,\u00a0Mali\u00a0and\u00a0Burkina Faso\u00a0, after years of fighting Islamic extremists alongside regional troops. Those countries have grown closer to\u00a0Russia\u00a0, which has deployed mercenaries in the\u00a0Sahel\u00a0, the vast expanse beneath the\u00a0Sahara\u00a0Desert .<\/p>\n
Chad’s interim president,\u00a0Mahamat Deby Itno\u00a0, took power after his father, who ruled the country for more than three decades, was killed fighting rebels in 2021. Last year, the government announced it was extending the 18-month transition by two years, leading to nationwide protests.<\/p>\n
Chad said the decision to end the agreement in no way called into question its historical ties with France and that it wanted to maintain relations in other areas of common interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Chad on Friday to demand the withdrawal of French troops from the country, a week after the central African country ended a military agreement with its former colonizer. In the capital, N’Djamena, protesters chanted\u00a0“Chad for us, France out”\u00a0, some holding banners reading\u00a0“We don’t want to see a single Frenchman in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,33],"tags":[475,290,3540,1512],"class_list":["post-14421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-politics","tag-chad","tag-france","tag-mahamat-deby-itno","tag-ndjamena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}