End of the French intervention in the Sahel. Macron’s last defeat
President Emmanuel Macron said France will begin closing its bases in northern Mali before the end of the year, with the move to be completed by early 2022 as it restructures its military presence in the African Sahel. Practically a retreat to mark a decade of political and military failures.
Macron's announcement was made on Friday during a summit with G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania), with the president saying French bases in Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu, Mali , they will close and the French military will return home.
The closures of French bases in Mali are expected to begin in the second half of the year, he said, and be fully completed by 2022. In parallel, troops will be withdrawn from the Sahel region gradually, at about half of the current 5,100 contingents. .
However, the former colonial power will still have an interest in ensuring stability in the Sahel region, with Macron saying that France "will remain committed" there, but taking a different approach, still unclear.
"Our enemies have abandoned their territorial ambitions to spread their threat not only across the Sahel, but across West Africa," Macron said in a press conference with Niger President Mohamed Bazoum.
"We will reorganize in line with this need to stop this spread to the south and it will lead to a reduction of our military footprint in the north," added the French leader.
France launched its campaign against jihadist terrorists in the Sahel in 2013 under then-president Francois Hollande, as the threat was deemed significant to the security of the European continent and the West African region.
The nearly decade-long deployment was not the success initially hoped for, with the counter-terrorism campaign dubbed "French Afghanistan". Extremist Islamist groups plaguing the Sahel show little sign of abating, and French domestic support for military involvement dropped to less than 50% in May 2021.
On June 10, Macron declared that French "Operation Barkhane" in Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso would be closed and French troops would be withdrawn. At least 50 French soldiers have died in the Sahel since 2013, without serious containment of the power of the various Islamist groups that are still present in Mali, Niger, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. Indeed, the situation has become even hotter after the assassination of Central African President Sidiki Abbas this spring. Furthermore, there is an increasing presence of Russian advisers in the area , especially in the presidential guards, a tangible sign of Moscow's return.
Macron would like to replace his force with an international force, but, for now, only the Italians have put a few soldiers on a mission that seems doomed to failure.
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The article End of the French intervention in the Sahel. Macron's latest defeat comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/fine-dellintervento-francese-nel-sahel-ultima-sconfitta-di-macron/ on Sun, 11 Jul 2021 08:00:17 +0000.