France and Gabon deepen mining and military ties as Paris redraws its Africa map

Gabonese President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema landed in Paris on Monday for a three-day state visit, his second official trip to France since seizing power in an August 2023 coup, in a visit built almost entirely around two subjects: manganese and military basing rights. He travelled with an 80-member delegation of business executives and government officials, underscoring how central economic diplomacy has become to the Libreville-Paris relationship.

A rehabilitation completed
Oligui's welcome in Paris marks the final stage of his political rehabilitation. He first visited France in May 2024 as transitional leader, before President Emmanuel Macron reciprocated with a state visit to Libreville in November 2025 to mark the formal end of Gabon's coup-era transition. He was elected president in April 2025 with a landslide margin.

Libreville-based political scientist Bergès Mietté described relations between the two capitals as untroubled since the takeover, telling RFI that Gabon has stayed on a path of continuity with France even though the coup interrupted five decades of Bongo family rule. That framing matters regionally: while military-led governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have severed ties with Paris and expelled French forces, Gabon has chosen the opposite trajectory, positioning itself as one of the few remaining anchors of French influence in Francophone Africa.

Manganese takes centre stage
The core of this visit is Gabon's manganese sector, where the country ranks among the world's largest producers. Libreville has set a January 2029 deadline requiring all manganese ore to be processed locally before export, a policy aimed squarely at French mining group Eramet, which has operated in Gabon for decades. Paris is reportedly pushing back, seeking more time to build the processing infrastructure needed to meet that target. Alongside the manganese question, Gabon is seeking French backing and foreign investment for the modernisation of the 700-kilometre Transgabon railway, the artery that carries the bulk of the country's mineral exports to port. Analysts describe the railway and mining sectors as two of the three central issues on the visit's agenda, reflecting how tightly Gabon's economic future is bound to a French-built and, until now, French-processed supply chain.

A shrinking but not disappearing military footprint

The security dimension of the relationship has also been recalibrated rather than dismantled. France has sharply reduced its military presence in Gabon, cutting troop numbers at its historic Libreville base from more than a thousand soldiers to roughly a hundred as part of a wider restructuring of its African force posture.

The old 6th Marine Infantry Battalion has effectively given way to a training academy model, with Gabon expected to take over the land and repurpose it for training its own defence and security forces. A new defence agreement may be signed during this visit, and the French presidency has signaled it is prepared to respond to Gabon's priorities on the matter.

This mirrors a broader continental pattern of French forces withdrawing from permanent basing arrangements in favor of smaller advisory and capacity-building footprints, including environmental protection and counter-poaching training programmes French forces have run in Gabon this year.

The regional and Ghanaian angle
For Ghana and the wider West African coast, the Gabon model is instructive. As France scales back the classic post-colonial garrison arrangement across the continent, competition for influence, infrastructure financing and resource-processing partnerships is intensifying, creating openings that Türkiye, Russia and China have each moved to fill in different ways.

Gabon's manganese standoff also echoes a pattern familiar to Ghana's own mining and bauxite governance debates: resource-rich African states increasingly demanding local value addition rather than raw export, and using that leverage to extract broader economic and security commitments from former colonial partners. Rising authoritarian pressures inside Gabon, including an internet blackout in place since 17 February and the continued detention of the country's main opposition leader on fraud allegations, are a reminder that such partnerships often proceed without much scrutiny of domestic governance conditions, a dynamic that watchers of Ghana-Türkiye and Ghana-Russia engagement have flagged as worth monitoring closely.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

mustysallama@gmail.com
+233-555-275-880
References:
RFI/AOL, "France welcomes Gabon's Oligui as mineral and military ties defy wider rift in Africa," 20 July 2026, https://www.aol.co.uk/articles/france-welcomes-gabons-oligui-mineral-125858000.html

Africanews, "Gabon's President Oligui Ngema arrives in France for state visit," 20 July 2026, https://www.africanews.com/2026/07/20/gabons-president-oligui-ngema-arrives-in-france-for-state-visit/

Africanews, "French Army initiates environmental protection training for African forces in Gabon," 18 March 2026, https://www.africanews.com/amp/2026/03/18/french-army-initiates-environmental-protection-training-for-african-forces-in-gabon/

Wikipedia, "France–Gabon relations," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France%E2%80%93Gabon_relations

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