Macron’s bitter farewell to the Barkhane operation

by time news

Time.news – The French President, Emmanuel Macron, announced the end of theoperation Barkhane, the transalpine military deployment in Sahel in contrast tojihadist uprising bloodied the area and that only last week recorded one of its most brutal episodes, with the massacre of at least 138 civilians in the North of Burkina Faso.

“Once the consultations are concluded, we will begin a profound transformation of our military presence in the Sahel”, said the French president at a press conference, communicating the “end of the Barkhane operation as an operation abroad” and the start of an “international alliance that associate the states of the region “.

Deby’s death and the coup in Mali upset the picture

Increasingly unpopular at home, due to the dozens of fallen in the French ranks, the Barkhane operation received the coup de grace with two events that upset the geopolitical framework of one of the most unstable areas in the world. Earlier, Macron had lost a key ally with the last April death of the president of Chad, Idriss Deby, in the fighting against the rebels.

Then, in recent days, the military coup in Mali, the epicenter of the Islamist offensive, has forced Paris to suspend military cooperation with Bamako, due to the conciliation signals sent by Colonel Goita’s junta to the jihadists. A unsustainable situation which was weighed down by France’s unsuccessful attempt to involve important Western allies.

The solitude of the Elysée

All’Takuba operation, which should take the place of Operation Barkhane, a total of 600 European special forces based in Mali are currently participating: 300 French, 140 Swedes and a few dozen Estonians and Czechs. Not enough to replace the 5,100 transalpine troops currently stationed in the Sahel.

Macron made no secret of his frustration at being left alone to counter an extremism that thrives on popular discontent over the poverty and corruption of rulers. “I don’t think we can take the place of sovereign peoples in building a place for them,” said the French president.

The message sent to the new Malian authorities is also explicit. “We cannot bear the ambiguity”, said the tenant of the Elysée, “we cannot conduct joint operations with powers that decide to dialogue with groups that shoot at our children”.

© Frederic Petry/ Hans Lucas via AFP

A joint patrol of French and Malian forces

An unstoppable wave of massacres

Operation Barkhane, which cost the lives of 50 French soldiers, can boast some successes on the field, such as the killing of Al Qaeda leader in the Islamic Maghreb last year, Abdelmalek Droukdel. In recent months, however, jihadist violence has only intensified, with militiamen, often from Mali, who have sowed terror in the neighboring areas of Niger and Burkina Faso, attacking villages and exterminating hundreds of civilians.

In 2020, 2,248 civilians were killed in the central Sahel, 400 more than the previous year. And 2021 began with the massacre of 105 civilians in two Niger villages.

The first French intervention dates back to 2013, when theServal operation, replaced the following year by the Barkhane operation, tried to stem the bond between the jihadist formations and some local rebel militias. Since then, the clashes have caused the deaths of thousands of military and civilians and the displacement of over two million people to some of the poorest nations on the planet.

A crossroads of illegal trade

What favors the extremists is the poor control that the state authorities exercise in territories where vast rural and desert areas are abandoned to themselves, leaving the local population to create self-defense militias as the only alternative to bowing to the jihadists, able to exploit the pre-existing divisions between ethnic groups.

Macron is determined to bring the dossier to the G7 table. The Sahel is not only a crossroads of illegal arms and drug trade but is also a key hub of the human trafficking, the scene of the literal crossing of the desert of tens of thousands of sub-Saharan migrants attempting to reach Europe. The Sahel is everyone’s problem. And it is a problem that is getting worse.

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