Hervé Morin is President of the Normandy region, President of the Les Centristes party and former Minister of Defense.
The third summit bringing together the five members of the G5-Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad) and France is being held this Monday, February 15.
Germany is invited to do so, as Italy and Spain previously did, confirming that our European allies finally seem to realize that the issue of security in the Sahel concerns all of Europe.
The two previous meetings had highlighted the paradox of French military engagement, militarily engaged to the tune of more than 5,000 men in a vast area of 5 million km2.
They fought valiantly there, hardly more than 2000 fighters resulting from a galaxy of terrorist armed groups for some resulting from the movement of Al Qaida and others having pledged allegiance to Daesh.
Although suffering heavy losses, nearly a thousand in 2020, including several emblematic leaders, the latter did not disarm, and continue to kill civilians and armed forces.
Thus 50 of our soldiers have died in operation since 2013. More than 3,000 Malian soldiers and 140 peacekeepers have also died in this relentless fight against the terrorist organizations which are rife in the majority in the so-called “
three borders
” area located between Mali , Niger and Burkina Faso.
The UN recently came to recall, moreover, that 4,250 Burkinabés, Malians and Nigeriens, including many women and children, were victims of terrorism in 2020.
Military victories do not make peace in the Sahel and even less guarantee the stabilization of the region that was sought.
The N'Djamena Summit should not derogate from this dilemma of counterinsurgency: military victories do not make peace in the Sahel and even less guarantee the stabilization that our military commitment had nevertheless come to defend.
This comparison is not right, but the parallel with Afghanistan is indisputably obvious: twenty years of NATO presence, up to 150,000 soldiers deployed at the height of international military engagement, including that of the 60,000 French soldiers who served there between 2001 and 2014 and the 90 who fell there for France, seem to lead to an inevitable dialogue with the Taliban!
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Our partners intend to engage, at their own pace and according to their conditions, in the process of national reconciliation which will inevitably lead to a dialogue with the leaders of the armed groups that we are fighting today.
We are not there yet, of course, in the Sahel.
Nevertheless, our local partners intend to engage, at their own pace and according to their conditions, in the process of national reconciliations which will inevitably lead to a dialogue with the leaders of the armed groups that we are fighting today.
Should France leave Mali and the Sahel for all that?
The situation since the Pau Summit and that of Nouakchott has changed significantly.
Last August, a coup d'état swept away the democratic legitimacy of the electoral processes that eight UN resolutions are supposed to guarantee in Mali since 2013.
The re-election of Burkinabé President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré at the end of last November still does not allow nearly a million Burkinabés to return to their homes.
The prospect of a sixth term for the Chadian president, Idriss Déby, in the light of the next presidential election next April, hardly seems likely to reduce the security pressure from Boko Haram fighters around Lake Chad .
The election of a new president in Mauritania, in August 2019 and that to come, in Niger, in accordance with their Constitutions, is exemplary to recall, on February 21, appear to be very fragile democratic gains, moreover.
The N'Djamena Summit, so that it can serve concretely to change our military system towards endogenous appropriation of security, ardently demanded by all parties, should not elude this nagging question of insufficient democratic anchoring, even inability of the state to return to areas where armed terrorist groups are rampant.
It is, in fact, the sine qua non of the scope and duration of our anti-terrorist action.
The question is not therefore that France abandons the ground that it has helped to secure, at the cost of painful efforts, but indeed that the 18,000 G5 Sahel soldiers trained since 2014 are taking, in a future to be defined with precision, their responsibilities.
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From now on, a new chapter of our commitment must open, it must be combined in an action as "
global
", enhancing more our civil-military actions, in the field of support for agriculture, education, environment, than a "
segmented
"
action
, reinforcing the "
targeted
"
actions
of our special forces, like the rise of Task Force Takuba, made up of around ten European special forces by 'next summer.
The 2021-2022 European and Euro-Atlantic calendar offers an ideal window of opportunity.
The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General François Lecointre, summed it up perfectly: “
We have gone around the dial!
".
It is high time that we assess, in conscience and in consultation with our partners and allies, the "
ultimate goal
" of our military engagement.
The notion of the “
relativity
” of victory when it comes to fighting terrorist organizations and armed groups should encourage us to seek to win peace rather than persisting in defeating an enemy as volatile as it is agile.