What was the first African country colonized by the French? And when was this?

Answer 1

In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624.

Various European powers - Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain - competed for trade in Senegal from the 15th century onward, until in 1677, France ended up in possession of what had become an important slave trade departure point - the infamous island of Gorée next to modern Dakar. Millions of West African tribes people were shipped from here. It was only in the 1850s that the French began to expand their foothold onto the Senegalese mainland, at the expense of native kingdoms such as Waalo, Cayor, Baol, and Jolof.