This is a speech that will not warm up relations between Paris and Bamako. Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, acting Prime Minister of Mali, violently attacked this Saturday at the UN platform the French government, which he described as a “junta”.
Referring to the withdrawal of French soldiers from the Barkhane force in Mali, he said during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly that Mali had been “stabbed in the back by the French authorities”.
“The French authorities, deeply anti-French for having denied universal moral values and betrayed the heavy humanist heritage of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, have transformed themselves into a junta at the service of obscurantism”, declared, three times, Colonel Maïga appointed interim Prime Minister in August by the head of the Malian junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta.
Accusing France of “neocolonial, condescending, paternalistic and revanchist practice”, he on the other hand hailed “the exemplary and fruitful cooperation relations between Mali and Russia”.
Relations deteriorated between Bamako and Paris after the second coup led by the colonels in May 2021 against a president and a Prime Minister whom they had installed themselves, then the revocation by the colonels of their commitment to return power to civilians in February 2022.
The tensions worsened as the junta approached Russia. France and its allies accuse the Malian authorities of securing the services of the controversial Russian private company Wagner. The government disputes and speaks of old state-to-state collaboration.
A situation which gradually led the French army of the Barkhane force, present in the country to fight against jihadist groups, to leave Mali, the ruling junta accusing Paris of helping terrorists.
Other personalities targeted
At the United Nations, Colonel Maïga also harshly criticized several African leaders, such as Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, whom he accused of not being Nigerien, or the Ivorian Head of State Alassane Ouattara, as well as the Secretary General of UN Antonio Guterres.
The interim Prime Minister has rejected the statements of Antonio Guterres who affirmed, a few days ago during an interview with RFI and France 24, that the 46 Ivorian soldiers detained in Mali since the beginning of July were not ” mercenaries”, contradicting Bamako’s accusations.
“Let me express my deep disagreement with you following your recent media outing”, launched the colonel, describing the case as “bilateral and judicial”. While this case turned into a diplomatic crisis between the two neighboring countries, he felt that this “does not (fall) within the remit of the Secretary General of the United Nations”.