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Notes -
Much of former French Colonial African is still de facto even if not de jure under French influence with the exception of the successful* "Coup Belt" countries. France is the poster child for the definition of neocolonialism.
You're talking about Francafrique? I don't know much about that, it seems like they're trying to reduce their footprint there. You got a source?
Source on what aspect? I was noting that characterizing francafrique as French (Neo)Imperial maintenance is not outside the overton window and that French armed forces do deploy regularly both to "provide security" to French aligned regimes and "peace keeping" in the less French aligned areas. Someone who might use the term Empire to describe the actions/area might use different terms than the quoted ones I used. I'm not aware of the French proactively reducing their footprint so much as being forced to given civil conflicts and anti-French attitudes of newer regimes.
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