News Story

France's foreign minister will on Thursday kick off a two-day visit to the Central African Republic intended to woo the former French colony, which has become a key Russian ally.

Jean-Noel Barrot's visit to Bangui is the first by a top-level French official in seven years. It comes after President Emmanuel Macron and his Centrafrican counterpart Faustin-Archange Touadera relaunched diplomatic ties in April 2024 following a falling-out over Moscow's growing influence.

On Friday, Barrot is set to meet Touadera -- who has just returned from a week-long visit to Moscow during which he met Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

"After a brief cold spell in our shared history, our relationship with the CAR is being renewed and strengthened," a diplomatic source told AFP.

After maintaining influence and soldiers in the CAR following independence in 1960, France has gradually lost ground to Russia in the mineral-rich country of 5.3 million people.

In the face of the CAR's long-standing instability, Touadera has come to rely more and more on mercenaries from Russia's Wagner group, who benefit in return from lucrative contracts in the gold, diamond and logging industries.

The last high-level French visit to the CAR was by then-foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in November 2018, two years after Touadera took power in the middle of a civil war.

After tinkering with the constitution to allow himself to stand for a third term, Touadera was re-elected president in December with 77.9 percent of the vote in a ballot denounced by the opposition as fraudulent.