French foreign policy is facing heavy criticism from human rights advocates. The French Green party, Les Écologistes, has issued a fierce condemnation of Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby’s latest official visit to the Élysée Palace. This meeting represents another step in the structural realignment between Paris and N’Djamena, which accelerated in January 2026 with the announcement of a “revitalized economic partnership” following the withdrawal of the last French troops from Chad in 2025. For the Greens, France cannot continue to legitimize a regime that actively fuels regional insecurity.
Systematic Oppression and Total Impunity
For nearly 36 years, Chad has been under the total control of a single family clan. Since taking power in 2021 following his father’s death, Mahamat Idriss Déby has sustained a policy of systematic violence against political dissidents. Les Écologistes highlight a troubling pattern of state-sponsored abuses: the February 2024 killing of opposition leader Yaya Dillo during a security raid, the subsequent eight-month unlawful detention of his successor Robert Gam, and the politically motivated 20-year prison sentence handed to former Prime Minister Succès Masra, who remains stripped of his electoral rights despite an August 2026 presidential pardon. Furthermore, the 2026 dissolution of the main opposition coalition, the GCAP, underscores a highly corrupt authoritarian state where oil revenues are pocketed exclusively by the Déby family.
French and Emirati Weapons Transiting to Sudan
More alarming still are the credible allegations that the Chadian regime is violating the international weapons embargo by acting as a logistical hub for arms deliveries to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who are currently conducting ethnic atrocities in Darfur. Investigations by UN experts, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have identified Chad’s Am Djarass airport as a major transit zone for Emirati weapon supplies. Shockingly, French-manufactured military hardware supplied to the UAE has been documented on the ground in Sudan. The Greens remind the international community that the RSF’s racially motivated massacres were officially condemned in the French Parliament through a resolution tabled in November 2025 by Green MP Steevy Gustave.
Demands by Les Écologistes
Faced with these severe violations, Les Écologistes refuse to tolerate Paris’s complicit silence. The Green party formally calls on Emmanuel Macron to challenge Déby’s regime by demanding:
- A full legal amnesty for all Chadian political prisoners, including the complete restoration of voting rights for Succès Masra.
- The organization of genuinely free, transparent, and pluralistic democratic elections monitored by independent international observers.
- An immediate end to arms transit to the RSF through Chadian territory and a strict enforcement of the international arms embargo, including on French-supplied military equipment.
