Macron Got a Smart Slap from Mali

Macron Got a Smart Slap from Mali

The army-led government in Mali last Sunday called on French President Emmanuel Macron to abandon his “neo-colonial and patronising” stance. This underscored the continuing deterioration of relations between Paris and Bamako.

“The (Mali) Transitional Government demands that President Macron permanently abandon his neo-colonial, paternalistic and patronising stance to understand that no one can love Mali more than the Malians themselves,” the African country’s government press office said, reports Radio France International (RFI) on August 1.

The reaction from the Malian capital came in response to remarks made by the Elysée Palace master during his three-day African tour with visits to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau last week. Referring to the current situation in Mali, the French president argued that West African countries have a responsibility to ensure that the citizens of Mali can “express the sovereignty of the people” and “create a basis of stability” to ensure “an effective fight against terrorist groups”.

Macron also referred to an alleged deal between the Malian regime and the Russian private security firm Wagner, which was the “decisive factor that pushed Paris to withdraw its 2,400 troops” from the country, RFI noted.

Bamako denies any presence of the Wagner PMC on its territory.

During a visit to Benin last Wednesday, Macron called Russia “one of the last imperial colonial powers”.

The military operation launched by France in January 2013 to fight jihadists in Mali, first called “Serval” and then “Barkhan”, was covered by a bilateral agreement reached in March of the same year. However, relations between Paris and Bamako deteriorated after another coup d’état in the African country. The latest coup took place on the night of 24 May 2021, when the army captured President Ba Ndau, Prime Minister Moktar Ouane and Defence Minister Suleiman Dukure. Assimi Goita, the head of the putschists who staged Mali’s previous coup d’état in 2020, announced that Ndau and Ouan had been stripped of their powers and new elections would be held in 2022. This was the third coup d’état in the country in the last ten years, following the military coups of 2012 and 2020.

As reported by EADaily, more than 2,400 French soldiers and officers deployed in Mali as part of Operation Barkhan will be completely withdrawn from the country after President Macron said in February this year that “multiple obstacles” from local authorities made it impossible to continue the military mission of Paris.

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