Gabon

Traditionally, ties between France and Gabon are concentrated, and have always been punctuated by many bilateral visits in both directions.

President Ali Bongo Ondimba made his first bilateral visit outside the region to Paris on 20 November 2009. On 16 December 2009, on the way to the summit in Copenhagen, President Bongo was received again at Elysée alongside his Central African counterparts, on the occasion of a consultation meeting on the future of the forests of the Congo Basin, and he just visited Paris on 27 September 2010, meeting with the French President, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea.

The French President made an official visit to Gabon on 24 February 2010, during which several major documents testifying to the revitalization of our bilateral relations were signed: an action plan for the implementation of a strategic partnership (2010-2014) between France and Gabon, a defence partnership treaty, replacing the defence agreement dating back to independence, an agreement on the exchange of young professionals (resulting from the agreement on the concerted management of migration flows signed in 2007) as well as several loan agreements with the AFD.

France is anxious to assist the policy of “emergence” that President Bongo wishes to implement and the action plan should make it possible to help bring this about.

Gabon is one of the countries in which our pre-positioned forces are stationed in Africa (the FFG - Forces Françaises au Gabon, French Forces in Gabon).

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