The French army will remain in Chad, said Emmanuel Macron’s Ambassador to Africa Jean-Marie Bokel

France wants to maintain a foothold in the Sahel. The French army will remain in Chad, Emmanuel Macron’s Africa envoy said on Thursday in N’Djamena, expressing France’s “admiration” for the president and head of the junta in power for three years, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, for his transition process. “We must stay and, of course, we will stay,” the only invitee, Jean-Marie Bokel, the French president’s “personal envoy” responsible for discussing new forms of the French army, said before the presidential press. presence on the continent, which Paris intends to significantly reduce.

There are currently a thousand French soldiers in Chad. After a series of coups d’état in Mali, Burkina Faso and then Niger, military juntas ousted the French army, marking the end of a decade of anti-jihadist intervention in the Sahel. “President Macron asked me to work” with N’Djamena “on the adaptation, the evolution of our system, to better adapt it (…) to the military and security challenges of the region,” Jean-Marie Bockel continued after the interview. with General Deby.

The latter was proclaimed at the head of a junta of 15 generals as transitional president on April 20, 2021, following the death of his father Idriss Déby Itno, who ruled Chad with an iron fist for 30 years. “This is not just a matter of numbers, we must stay, and of course we will stay,” insisted Jean-Marie Bokel in a speech broadcast on the website of the Chadian president.

The opposition has been repressed, according to NGOs

“I expressed to the President of the Republic our admiration for the process that he has initiated within his country, as well as Chad’s ability to confront a certain number of threats at the same time thanks to the armed forces involved,” concluded the French ambassador.

The announcement comes two months before a presidential election in which candidate Déby, 39, is the clear winner with no serious challengers in the opposition, which is either rallying to the junta or facing brutal repression, according to non-governmental organizations, international rights groups person. rights. But also eight days after the death of Mahamat Debi’s main political rival and cousin, Yaya Dillo Djeru, in an army attack on his party headquarters.

His party accuses the soldiers, accompanied by photographs, of “executing” him with a bullet to the head at point-blank range, and the rest of the opposition of “killing” him in order to exclude him from the presidential race, which the government denies , which accused him, among other things, of organizing an attack on powerful intelligence services. “The circumstances of Yaya Dillo’s murder are unclear, but her violent death illustrates the dangers facing opposition politicians in Chad, especially in the run-up to elections,” Human Rights Watch (HRW), which like other international NGOs regularly condemns repression against any opposition or dissent.