French troops completed their withdrawal from Mexico in March 1867 after the intervention linked to Cinco de Mayo.
France intervened in Mexico after President Benito Juárez suspended payments on foreign debts in 1861. Britain and Spain eventually withdrew, but France continued the campaign and supported the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian. The French defeat at Puebla on May 5, 1862 delayed, rather than ended, that intervention.
Napoleon III increasingly faced pressure to remove French troops. The United States opposed the European-backed empire, and the end of the American Civil War allowed Washington to apply stronger diplomatic and military pressure. France began withdrawing its expeditionary forces in stages, with the final troops leaving in March 1867.
Maximilian was captured and executed in June 1867, after republican forces restored control. The withdrawal therefore came before the empire’s final collapse. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 victory, not the later French departure or the execution of Maximilian.