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PARIS. – France and allied nations announced yesterday that they were withdrawing troops from Mali due to a breakdown in relations with the ruling junta after nine years of fighting a jihadist insurgency..
After a French-led military intervention ousted jihadists who were taking control of northern Mali in 2013, French troops remained to provide support for anti-terrorist operations. But deteriorating relations with Mali’s new military leaders, who seized power in a 2020 coup, prompted France to reconsider its role in the country.
The Mali deployment has been fraught with problems for France. Out of the 53 French soldiers killed serving in West Africa, 48 of them died in Mali.
“Multiple obstructions” by the ruling junta meant that the conditions were no longer in place to operate in Mali, said ta joint announcement from the Élysée Palace yesterday, signed by France and its African and European allies.
“We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de-facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share,” President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference, adding that he “completely” rejected the idea that France had failed in the country.
The withdrawal applies to both 2 400 French troops in Mali and a smaller European force of several hundred that was created in 2020 with the aim of lessening the burden on French forces.
Macron said that French bases in Gossi, Menaka and Gao would close but vowed the withdrawal would be carried out in an “orderly” manner. – France24.com
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