France has denounced this Sunday the presentation made of its military, as resource lootersin a Marvel blockbuster, in which they appear in a uniform very similar to the one worn by those deployed in Mali.
In a message on his Twitter account, the French Defense Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has “firmly condemned this lying and misleading representation of our Armed Forces”, referring to Black Panther Wakanda Forever.
This American production from last year, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, is a continuation of the first part of Black Pantherin which the action is situated in a fictional kingdom, Wakanda.
In one of the scenes that has provoked the reaction of the French minister, some kneeling soldiers before the queen of Wakanda, Ramonda, with uniforms like those of the French soldiers who were in Mali, and who ended up leaving that country last year at the request of the new Bamako regime, in open friction with Paris.
I strongly condemn this misleading and misleading representation of our Armed Forces.
I think and pay tribute to the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali at its request against Islamist terrorist groups. https://t.co/KpnFIcatPt
— Sebastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) February 12, 2023
Lecornu wanted to remember in his tweet the “58 French soldiers who died defending Maliwho had requested it, against the Islamist terrorist groups”.
Thus, the minister has insisted that the French military intervention in Maliwhich lasted nine years until August 2022, was carried out at the request of the authorities of that former colony in 2013 because they feared its overthrow by jihadist forces, which controlled a large part of the territory in the northeast of the country.
The French forces’ departure from Mali is a consequence of the two successive coups which have led to the rise to power of an openly anti-French military regime and which, according to Paris, is supported by the Wagner mercenary militia, directly linked to the Kremlin.