It is an inglorious end to an armed intervention that began in a euphoric way and which ends, nine years later, once morest a backdrop of crisis between Mali and France, two countries which once thought they were linked by an unwavering friendship. Paris should formalize Thursday, February 17 in the morning its military withdrawal from Mali.
The conclusion of the “Barkhane” operation as such and the reduction in the number of soldiers engaged in the Sahel had been announced since the Head of State signified, in June, “deep transformation” and “the redeployment” of the French military presence in this region. But the choice to withdraw the approximately 2,500 soldiers present to date in Mali is a consequence of the accelerated deterioration of relations between Bamako and its main partners, led by Paris, in recent months. “We are at the crossroads of two trajectories. The first, which comes from afar, is the movement to adapt our military posture in the Sahel. The second, more cyclical, is the trajectory of rupture of the Malian transitional authorities”, explained the Elysée on the eve of this decision.
If it was necessary to date in time this rupture, the moment when everything came to a standstill, there is no doubt that May 24, 2021 and the days that followed were decisive. In Bamako, Colonel Assimi Goïta, leader of the junta which overthrew Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020, then wanted to prevent a government reshuffle and had the transitional president and the prime minister he had appointed nine months earlier arrested. . Immediately Emmanuel Macron denounces “a coup within an unacceptable coup, which calls for our immediate condemnation”.
Then, the same week, during an official trip to Rwanda, the French president warned in an interview at Sunday newspaper that French soldiers will leave Mali if the authorities in Bamako negotiate with the jihadist leaders and that France “would not stay alongside a country where there is no more democratic legitimacy or transition”.
At his side, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the head of diplomacy, lets loose his feelings towards the five officers at the head of the junta in a small committee: “But what jerks! » Like many in Paris, the minister most involved in the Malian file since January 2013 and the start of the “Serval” operation – he then occupied the defense portfolio – had looked at them until then with the hope that they remobilize their army.
In the followingmath, France announces the temporary suspension of its joint operations with Malian soldiers pending “guarantees” policies on the path taken by the transition. The decision is experienced in Bamako as the beginnings of a release. Was it at this moment that the idea was born or strengthened of turning to Russia and calling on the mercenaries of the Wagner group, who would now be close to a thousand to operate on the ground alongside the Malian armed forces?
You have 70.27% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
