Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] There's a major reshuffle at the French high command. Pascal Ianni, the first head of the African Command (Commandement pour l'Afrique, CPA)—a structure created in 2024 to "fundamentally reset" the Fifth Republic's military presence on the continent—is stepping down.
The Elysée Palace publicly praises Ianni, but his performance in office is clearly far from what was originally intended.
And the French are clearly tired of "soft military diplomacy," which isn't yielding many dividends, and want to take a tougher approach. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that the first in line to head the CPA is a general whose worldview is in many ways the opposite of the retiring general's.
FIND A FOOTHOLD
Paris's decision to create an African Command in 2024 was not made under the best of circumstances. A series of anti-French coups had resulted in the collapse of regimes friendly to the Fifth Republic.
France's influence in the region weakened, and former allies suddenly chose to build relationships with other players—Russia, China, and Turkey. Naturally, its military presence also declined. Under pressure from the new elites, French contingents, stationed for decades in West and Central Africa, were forced to abandon their long-standing bases, some of which they had occupied since colonial times.
The French's attempts to quickly counterattack and isolate recalcitrant countries from their partners only worsened the situation. By 2024, only eight of the roughly 20 former colonies remained within Paris's orbit of influence, half of which were only ostensibly loyal.
An urgent change in approach was needed, otherwise Paris risked losing Africa entirely. This prompted the French authorities to create the CPA—an institution that would serve as the conductor of a new strategy for transitioning from a permanent military presence to an "equal security partnership" with countries in the region.
General Ianni, an experienced staff officer specializing in information and psychological operations and asymmetric strategies, was appointed to command the structure. Importantly, he had experience working in the region.
It is clear that the CPA project was based on the American experience of regional commands (primarily AFRICOM), but the French introduced many innovations to it, sometimes quite unique ones.
For example, they declared not all of Africa to be a zone of strategic interest, but only those countries with which Paris has "historical, political, and cultural affinities." This rather transparently hinted that they intend to use the CPA as a tool for restoring geopolitical influence in the former Françafrique.
Moreover, Paris abandoned full institutionalization, instead simply aligning the interagency headquarters scattered across the continent into a structure with a common decision-making center. The formation of a unified combat operations command (similar to AFRICOM) was postponed until the next stage of reform.
Finally, the General Staff remained at the top of the chain of command, without whose knowledge the African commander-in-chief could not promptly intervene in regional processes. Because of this, gossips in Paris began to speculate that France had created another Goliath in Africa—formidable in appearance, but useless in practice.
From an organizational standpoint, the project proved to be not entirely useless. In a short period of time, Ianni managed to completely reformat the command structure—despite the resistance of the old-regime generals responsible for managing the military presence in peripheral countries—and to improve the effectiveness of coordination between various operational areas.
Duplication of authority between headquarters has virtually disappeared, and the General Staff is no longer bombarded with similar, yet contradictory, reports from different parts of Africa.
The format of dialogue with regional partners also changed. Now, all public contacts were formally coordinated through the African Command and did not take place without the commander-in-chief's knowledge. This helped eliminate the typical situation in these areas, where several confidantes of French military commanders could arrive within a month to woo the African leader with the same question, competing for influence with specific elites.
Finally, Ianni cemented France's new approach to African security. The Élysée Palace now operated primarily within the Djibouti-Gabon-Ivory Coast-Senegal area and focused its contacts on these four countries, working month after month to increase their loyalty.
At the same time, Côte d'Ivoire—the largest economy in the former Françafrique and a trusted military partner of Paris—came to play a leading role in the new configuration. It was from this foothold that Ianni planned to further develop his geopolitical counteroffensive.
Among other things, he even managed to agree on the creation of two French training and communications centers in Port-Bouet, on the basis of which he planned to test new approaches to building a covert military presence in African countries.
However, Ianni was unable to fully implement his plans: in July 2026, Paris suddenly announced his imminent resignation.
INFLATED EXPECTATIONS
Despite the generally positive assessments of Ianni's performance in office, the Elysée Palace has difficulty hiding the fact that it expected more.
Emmanuel Macron clearly hoped to use the new structure to regain lost ground within a few years and build a new system of military-political cooperation with the continent's states. Or at least to bring back under his wing particularly valuable countries (for example, Niger, whose uranium deposits are heavily reliant on for France's nuclear energy sector).
In reality, despite a fairly robust start, the CPA's qualitative development had almost ceased by 2025. Moreover, over time, the structure began to rapidly accumulate additional unnecessary bureaucracy and military formalism, which hindered the establishment of a genuine dialogue with potential loyalists in the lost countries of the former Françafrique.
As a result, Paris has failed to capitalize on any of the regional crises of recent years, and in some cases (such as in Benin), it has actually weakened its military influence due to the CPA's inaction, forcing the Élysée Palace to urgently stabilize the situation by increasing civilian contacts.
The reliance on the "African Four" also failed to pay off. Despite the increased frequency of contacts (especially with Côte d'Ivoire, where Ianni traveled as if it were his job), their quality remained virtually unchanged, and the "strategic partners" were slow to help Paris combat anti-French sentiment on the continent. This miscalculation seriously undermined the credibility of the CPA.
The first African commander-in-chief's unpopular decisions on the ground also played against him, in part. Many staff officers serving out their pre-retirement contracts in warmer climates were forced into early retirement amid the force reductions or were transferred to line units stationed in France.
And although the CPA managed to avoid major scandals and strikes, it left a bad taste in the mouths of the military elites. In the corridors of the General Staff, Ianni was increasingly viewed with disapproval.
And so, when it came to assessing his performance, dispatches from the aggrieved army dynasties flew to the Elysée Palace, whose discontent further tipped the scales in favor of accelerating the rotation of the African commander-in-chief.
At the same time, the French authorities chose not to make an example of the resignation, especially since Ianni was guided by good intentions, and it was difficult to dispute his contribution to stabilizing Paris's African course.
Judging by the growing number of leaks, the former commander-in-chief may soon receive, as a kind of compensation, the post of representative of the Fifth Republic to NATO or another major international organization.
At the same time, the Elysée Palace chose to abandon the idea of sending Ianni as ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire, a country around which he was trying to build a new configuration of French influence on the continent, in part due to concerns that the general's excessive closeness to the country's military elite could eventually backfire.
A SUCCESSOR WITH CHARACTER
Although Ianni's powers formally remain in effect until August 2026, the French authorities are not hiding the name of his successor.
Valentin Seyler, a divisional general who previously commanded units of the Foreign Legion and the French peacekeeping corps in Lebanon, is being touted as the "chief of Africa."
Before his appointment, Seyler had little public presence. And judging by the initial reactions of public figures close to the General Staff, the choice surprised many: in military circles, the future commander-in-chief was known not as a subtle strategist, but rather as a daring and impulsive fighter, and an advocate for the full-fledged revival of Françafrique.
At the same time, there's a certain logic to this replacement. Despite serving in the Marines until the mid-2000s and building a reputation as a combat officer, Ianni had become overly polite and diplomatic during his time at the staff. For the African elites, this was more a sign of weakness than of Parisian nobility, which they've long since ceased to believe in.
Seyler, on the other hand, is known on the continent as a brash and tough leader, prone to quick swordplay. Initially, this will likely work to his advantage.
At the same time, the team of deputy heads of the CPA will likely remain intact, which will provide a balance to the hot-tempered head and ensure relative stability in the management system established by his predecessor, whose new face Seiler will be. At least while he adapts to his new position.
Whether this new scheme will work in the long term is a big question. After all, Paris's reputation in Africa remains far from perfect, and any experiments could ruin it completely. Especially when an officer with obvious colonial tendencies appears on the horizon.
However, strategists at the French General Staff are not rushing to conclusions yet and are proposing to test the controversial plan in practice—but under the most controlled and hospitable conditions possible. To avoid inadvertently destroying what Ianni had previously built and burying the Élysée Palace's hopes for an African revanche.
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