Relations between France and Djibouti
Last summer, French President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to "rethink" all French military operations in Africa. During the national strategic review last November, he specified that Djibouti would not be affected. The Minister for the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, and then the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Thierry Burkhard, travelled to Djibouti (RDD) at the end of 2022 to discuss with its President, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, the extension of the defence treaty linking the two countries and to mark France's attachment to Djibouti. The current agreement, signed in 2011, expires in 2024.
France has a special relationship with its former colony, which has been independent since 1977: French troops have been stationed there since 1894, in what is now the largest French base abroad, with 1,500 military personnel and civilians. The French Forces stationed in Djibouti (FFDj) are the only contingent living with their families in Djibouti, integrated into Djiboutian society. The FFDj have been involved in a dozen operations since 1999in Asia and Africa. Located at the mouth of the Red Sea, on the western shore of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, Djibouti is an essential crossing point on the maritime route between Europe and Asia. 70% of French imports and 15% of France's hydrocarbon requirements transit through the Suez Canal. It is the junction between the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.
A state at the centre of concerns
But since the 2000s, various crises in the region (terrorism, piracy, conflicts in Iraq and Yemen) have led other powers to establish themselves in the DDR: the United States set up its only permanent base in Africa in 2002, followed in 2009 by Japan, anxious to protect its exports by sea; Italy followed suit in 2014, then China in 2017. For the two Asian countries, this is their first permanent military presence abroad. Finally, as part of the European anti-piracy operation AtalanteA Spanish contingent is stationed at the French air base.
For Djibouti, these concessions represent an estimated annual income of $170 million, or 3% of GNP. "Djibouti's diplomacy is a fascinating subject for study by IHEDN students", says researcher Sonia Le Gouriellec1. "Its policy is to play on the competition between the powers. All these powers observe each other without confronting each other, because it is in their interest for the region to remain stable. All the challenges for the future of the African continent are concentrated in this small territory. She does not hesitate to describe the country, twice the size of the Île-de-France, as a "garrison state" and a "natural aircraft carrier".
While France reduced its presence (its base hosted 4,300 soldiers just after independence, and still 2,000 15 years ago), the Chinese have become major players in the region, which borders the sea route of the New Silk Roads launched in 2013 by Xi Jinping. Beijing's interest in the DDR was primarily economic: it concerned access to Ethiopia's natural resources and, more broadly, the development of the region. Between 2012 and 2020, Beijing invested around $14 billion in construction, telecommunications and port facilities. Their military base, which is home to 400 soldiers (and could be expanded to 7,000), is designed to secure the maritime flows that are vital to their economy, but it also offers Beijing the ability to extend its reach beyond the traditional area of action of the Chinese armed forces, to the whole of the Indian Ocean.
In addition to this new dependence on China (55% of the RDD's debt stock is Chinese), the regional environment, which is particularly conflict-ridden, is a threat to Djibouti. The Horn of Africa has been in upheaval for the past two years. Until 2020, Ethiopia was enjoying a period of economic development and had embarked on a peace process with Eritrea. "Since November 2020, the situation has been worrying: we can talk of a real break-up of Ethiopia, with numerous conflicts in the Tigray region in the north and in the Oromo country in the south", says Sonia Le Gouriellec. "Eritrea, which is a totalitarian regime, has played a major role in the deterioration of the situation, and the conflict has spread to Djibouti, where members of the Afar and Somali ethnic groups have clashed. Since the summer of 2021, the situation seems to have stabilised.
Against this backdrop, what are the strategic issues for France in this region today?
They were clearly set out by the French President when he presented the National Strategic Review on 9 November in Toulon: "France's vocation is always to stand by its foreign partners. We want to provide security, from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab-Persian Gulf, via the Horn of Africa. This also applies to the Indo-Pacific, where in spring 2018 we proposed an innovative, clear and far-reaching strategy, which then inspired a European strategy just over two years later, and where we must make this important circle of solidarity flourish, from the United Arab Emirates, which we consider to be an exemplary and reliable partner for our country in all areas, to Djibouti. We value our presence here, and we have a history and a future here too.
At present, the Djibouti Defence Force is still the only force with the full range of military capabilities in Djibouti. However, Sonia Le Gourriellec points out that the French presence in the DDR is not limited to a simple security and stability contract. "France has retained an image as protector of the country that other players do not enjoy - even if this image has been overshadowed by the impression of military, political and economic disengagement felt by Djiboutians. If we want to play a role in the Indo-Pacific region, it seems to me that it is necessary and essential to maintain this presence in the DDR.
1 Sonia Le Gouriellec, " Djibouti. Giant diplomacy from a small state".Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2020.
