<i>I have to wonder where this land (possibly an entire region) would come from</i><p>Being a cynical bastard, my guess would be Casamance. There's a separatist movement down there with close ties to Gambia, so the Senegalese government's probably trying to dilute their influence by diluting their demographics --- bringing in Francophone immigrants who are completely clueless about local society (and thus dependent on the central government at first).<p>Ironically this is the same strategy that Rafael Trujillo used to strengthen the Dominican Republic's border with Haiti back in his day. [1]<p>[1] E.g. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_settlement_in_the_Dominican_Republic" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_settlement_in_the_Domi...</a>