Senegal

French presence

Consulate-General of France: Dakar
Consular agencies: Saint-Louis, Tambacounda and Cap Skirring.
French community in Senegal: 19,966 on the consular register (2025).
Senegalese community in France: estimated at between 200,000 and 300,000 people.

Bilateral visits

2026:

• Attendance of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the Africa Forward Summit co-hosted by France and Kenya on 11 and 12 May 2026.
• Visit to Paris by the Minister of African Integration, Foreign Affairs and Senegalese Abroad, Mr Cheikh Niang, on 13 April. He spoke with Minister Jean-Noël Barrot at an official dinner. He also met the new Director General of UNESCO.
• Visit to Senegal by the Minister Delegate for Francophonie, International Partnerships and French Nationals Abroad, Ms Éléonore Caroit, from 26 to 28 January, for the high-level preparatory meeting of the United Nations Water Conference. She met with the Minister for Water and Sanitation, Mr Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, and with the Minister for Urban Planning, Local Authorities and Territorial Development, Mr Balla Moussa Fofana, with whom she co-chaired the steering committee of the joint support facility to decentralized cooperation and signed the administrative arrangement renewing this facility for the 2026-2028 period.

2025:

• Visit to France by the President of the Republic of Senegal, Mr Bassirou Diomaye Faye, from 26 to 28 August. He was received by the President of the French Republic and the Minister. He participated in the Rencontre des Entrepreneurs de France, a business networking event organized by MEDEF in order to promote investment in Senegal.
• Visit to Senegal by the Minister Delegate for Francophonie and International Partnerships, Mr Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, on 10 and 11 March. He met with the Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs, Ms Yassine Fall, and with the Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Mr Abdourahmane Diouf.

2024:

• Visit to Senegal by the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Mr Jean-Noël Barrot, on 1 December, for the commemorations of the 80^th anniversary of the Thiaroye massacre.
• Visit to France by the Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs, Ms Yassine Fall, and the Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Mr Elhadj Abdourahmane Diouf, from 3 to 5 October, on the occasion of the Francophonie Summit in Villers-Cotterêts.
• Visit to France by the President of the Republic of Senegal, Mr Bassirou Diomaye Faye, accompanied by the Minister for Youth, Sports and Culture, Ms Khady Diène Gaye, from 24 to 27 July, for the Sport for Sustainable Development Summit (at which President Faye, as host of the 2026 Dakar Youth Olympic Games, was guest of honour and gave the closing speech alongside President Macron) and the opening of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
• Visit to France by the President of the Republic of Senegal, Mr Bassirou Diomaye Faye, accompanied by the Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs, Ms Yassine Fall, the Minister of the Armed Forces, General Birame Diop, the Minister of Finance and Budget, Mr Cheikh Diba, the Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Technology, Mr Alioune Sall, and the Minister for Health and Social Action, Mr Ibrahima Sy, from 19 to 22 June, for the Global Forum for Vaccine Sovereignty and Innovation. He met with the President of the French Republic, Mr Emmanuel Macron.

Cultural, scientific and technical cooperation

The French network in Senegal consists of:

• Senegal’s Institut Français, which includes the Dakar and Saint Louis branches;
• two Alliance Française branches in Ziguinchor and Kaolack;
• a network of 18 schools with French curricula, with some 8,500 students enrolled.

The Institut Français in Dakar mainly works in areas that provide support to Francophonie and cultural promotion, and to academic and scientific sectors. It has a Campus France office. On average, 60 higher education scholarships and doctoral grants are awarded each year to Senegalese students. During the academic year 2024-2025, there were 17,722 Senegalese students in France (up 30% in five years). 4,486 student visas were issued to Senegalese nationals in 2025.

Dakar is home to a Pasteur Institute and regional offices of the French Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). Plans to create a French-Senegalese campus were announced by the President of the French Republic during his official visit to Dakar in February 2018. The campus was officially launched on 11 June 2019, in the presence of the two ministers responsible for higher education. This campus currently offers some thirty programmes across French and Senegalese institutions.

France deploys around 20 international technical experts to Senegal, nine of whom are posted in multilateral institutions. They help to implement projects to tackle terrorism and organized crime, modernize the justice system, support democratic governance and create start-ups.

France works in coordination with international and especially European donors through which most of the French multilateral assistance passes. Our two countries also have strong ties in the field of decentralized cooperation. Senegal is the African country with the most cooperation partnerships with French local governments (around 100 ongoing partnerships between Senegalese and French local governments). Senegal is also among the main countries receiving French volunteers.

Other cooperation

Senegal is one of the leading beneficiaries of French structural defence and security cooperation.

As France continues to reconfigure its military presence in Africa, decided upon by our authorities and the wish expressed by the Senegalese authorities to end the presence of foreign military bases on their territory, the military facilities occupied by France were fully returned in 2025. A letter of intent setting out the temporary framework for the continuation of a special partnership that is balanced and mutually beneficial, without permanent facilities but maintaining naval and airport access for our armed forces, was signed by the two military Chiefs-of-Staff on 15 July 2025. 

In terms of internal security, Senegal, like the other coastal countries, has to deal with the consequences of instability in the Sahel, although it has not been targeted by terrorist attacks thus far. 

The creation of the regionally-oriented national school for cyber security in 2017 was a major step in strengthening French-Senegalese cooperation in that field. Since it launched in October 2020, some 400 participants have been trained every year in the school’s key teaching fields: cyber security governance, fighting cyber crime, digital intelligence and IT security.