Half of the French disapprove of the French intervention in Mali, for the first time since the start of the anti-jihadist operation started in 2013, according to a poll published Monday, January 11 by the magazine
Le Point
and carried out by the Ifop institute.
To read also: “Barkhane” challenged and bereaved in the Sahel
Eight years after the start of Operation Serval launched to help Mali repel an offensive by armed Islamist groups, 51% of French people questioned (i.e. half, with the margins of error) are “
rather not
” (32% ) or “
not at all
” (19%) in favor of French military intervention in this country where most of the Barkhane force is concentrated (which succeeded Serval in 2014), whose scope of action covers five countries of the Sahel (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania).
Some 49% of those polled say they are still in favor, whereas they were 73% in February 2013, the day after the liberation of Timbuktu, and 58% at the end of 2019, just after the death of 13 French soldiers in Mali in the collision of two helicopters.
This poll, carried out in early January, comes after two jihadist attacks in Mali which left a total of five dead on the French side, and at a time when France is considering a reduction of its troops in the Sahel.
The survey was conducted online from January 5 to 6 with a representative sample of 1,004 people, using the quota method.