PARIS – France announced on Thursday that it would withdraw its troops from the West African nation of Mali, bringing a bitter end to a nine-year military mission that has failed to undermine a terrorist threat in the increasingly unstable region ever undermined. dominant position in many of its former African colonies.
The announcement followed a rapid collapse in relations between France and Mali’s military rulers, sparking uncertainty over regional counter-terror operations led by France and supported by Western allies.
Jihadist groups have continued to spread across Mali and neighboring countries as France’s military presence has become increasingly unpopular. Mali’s leaders, much to France’s dismay, have asked for help from Russia – a rising power on the continent that had already supplanted French dominance in another former colony, the Central African Republic.
France’s withdrawal from Mali had been feared in Paris, not only because of its geopolitical implications, but also because of its powerful symbolism: a humiliating withdrawal of French soldiers from a part of the world where its influence was long undisputed, but where it was rapidly growing. eroding is ahead of newcomers, including China, Turkey and Germany, as well as Russia.
Troop withdrawals seemed inevitable in recent weeks, after the French foreign minister called Mali’s military leaders “out of control” and they retaliated by ousting the French ambassador, who was given just 72 hours to leave Malian soil.
With the presidential election in France less than two months away, the French government hoped to avoid any comparison with the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last year. France was careful to make the announcement after meeting African leaders the night before and to portray the development as a “coordinated withdrawal” by France and its allies.
Speaking at a press conference, France’s President Emmanuel Macron expressed frustration with Malian leaders — who came to power after two successive coups in the past 20 months — and said the rift in relations had prompted France and its allies to rethink their strategy. and their powers.
“We cannot remain militarily involved with de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden objectives we do not share,” Macron said at a press conference on Thursday, which took place Wednesday night after a dinner between the French leader and Western and African counterparts. and ahead of a summit between European Union and African Union leaders in Brussels.
But in Mali and in the rest of the region, the withdrawal will be seen as a defeat – not just of a foreign power, but of France, which, in its complicated post-colonial relations with its former colonies, still plays a major role in the lives and minds of many Africans.
“They may say they choose to leave, but from the Malian perspective, they’re being kicked out,” said Hannah Armstrong, an independent analyst who focuses on the Sahel region, a broad swath of land that cuts across Africa. just below the Sahara.
France’s hasty withdrawal is likely to be hailed as a major victory by the jihadist groups: the withdrawal of foreign troops is one of their two main demands, along with a transformation of society and politics in accordance with their strict interpretation of Sharia. said Ibrahim Yahaya. Ibrahim, a Sahel analyst for the International Crisis Group.
But it could also be welcomed by Mali’s military rulers, who have taken advantage of growing anti-France sentiment by the Malian public, who blame France in part for deteriorating security and corruption among the political elites it overthrew.
Macron said three military bases in Mali will be closed in the next four to six months, in consultation with the Malian armed forces.
While he said France and its allies were still discussing how their troops would be redeployed, he suggested there would be a pivot to neighboring Niger and a greater focus on countries in the Gulf of Guinea, as well as programs to help the civilian population before military operations become necessary.
From 2012 in Mali, terrorist groups in the Sahel began taking up arms against their governments.
Insurgent groups in Mali, as well as in neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, have attacked militaries ill-trained or ill-equipped to maintain security in the vast tracts of land that make up the sand-covered region, whose own abuses often make matters worse. makes . The militants also attack civilians; Mass murders have become a common occurrence.
France sent troops to Mali in 2013 to retaliate against armed Islamist extremists who had captured the northern cities, and the French soldiers were initially met with ecstasy. Mali had asked for intervention. The campaign would only last a few weeks.
But after France successfully expelled extremists from the cities, France decided to stay on, and the scope of its mission mushroomed. Now there are currently more than 4,000 French soldiers scattered across the Sahel. Most of them were in Mali, which is also home to a 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.
The military coalition, led by France and Mali but made up of other West African and European armies, had long been unable to turn the tide, and deteriorating security was one of the factors leading to Mali’s coup in August 2020. Sahel, Operation Barkhane, was extended, the popularity of the French-led intervention plummeted.
“Ten years after this crisis, it’s pretty clear that everyone’s Sahel strategy has failed miserably,” said Ornella Moderan, head of the Sahel program at the Institute for Security Studies.
As the mission threatened to turn into a swamp, France announced last June that it would withdraw its troops fighting under Barkhane, which receives operational support from the United States.
Mr Macron spoke strongly about France’s desire to re-establish France’s relations with Africa and establish ties beyond its traditional sphere of influence, especially with Nigeria and other economically dynamic English-speaking countries.
France’s diplomatic power rests largely on its influence in its former African colonies, along with its nuclear weapons and permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. In view of the elections in France, Mr Macron was eager to polish his image by recently meeting in person with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss the Ukraine crisis, even though Russia is believed to be hurting France where most importantly, in Africa.
According to senior US defense officials, there are now between 800 and 1,000 mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group in Mali, and their numbers are expected to increase. France said the mercenaries were invited by Mali’s military rulers, who have denied the charges.
The Wagner Group — a private military force founded by a former Russian intelligence officer and affiliated with an associate of Mr Putin — has played a key role in bringing the Central African Republic, another former French colony, within Russia’s sphere of influence.
But France’s loss of influence in Mali — bordering a group of nations that formed the core of France’s former colonial empire — is far more significant. It was the heart of what was once known as ‘la Françafrique’, the neocolonial entity formed by France and its former colonies, linked in a web of secret economic and political ties.
Coincidentally, the announcement of the withdrawal came on the same day as another milestone in France’s history in Africa. In a French village in Brittany, Vincent Bolloré, a French industrialist who for decades embodied ‘la Françafrique’, was to hold a much-discussed party to mark the 200th anniversary of his family business and his impending retirement.
For decades, his company, Bolloré Africa Logistics, controlled ports and transportation infrastructure across parts of the continent, making Mr. Bolloré one of the most powerful businessmen in Africa and close to both African and French presidents. With Mr Bolloré’s retirement, his company moves to sell its African businesses to MSC, an Italian-Swiss company.
A few weeks ago, French and African news media reported that one of Bolloré’s sons and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy quietly visited Alassane Ouattara, the president of the Ivory Coast, to discuss the sale – in what may be, with the withdrawal from Mali, another development in the final chapters of “la Françafrique.”
Norimitsu Onishic and Aurelien Breeden reported from Paris, and Ruth Maclean from Dakar. Mady Camara contributed reporting from Dakar and Adele Cordonnier Contributed research from Paris.