Emmanuel Macron said France would withdraw its troops if Mali went "
in the direction
" of radical Islamism, in an interview with the JDD broadcast on Sunday, after a second coup in nine months.
Read also: New coup by the junta in Mali
France, which engages around 5,100 men within Barkhane, supports Mali, which since 2012 has been facing a jihadist push from the North, which plunged the country into a security crisis and spread to the center of the country. But Paris, like the EU, denounced Tuesday an "
unacceptable coup
" after the arrest of President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane decided by the country's strongman Colonel Assimi Goïta.
“
To Malian President Bah N'Daw, who was very rigorous about the seal between power and jihadists, I said: 'Radical Islamism in Mali with our soldiers there?
No way!'
Today there is this temptation in Mali.
But if it goes in this direction, I will withdraw,
”warned the French president, in an interview with the
JDD
during a trip to Rwanda and South Africa.
"We will pay dearly for migration"
The French head of state also claims to have "
sent the message
" to the leaders of West Africa that he "
would not remain at the side of a country where there is no longer democratic legitimacy or transition
" .
He recalls having said for three years, "
within several Defense Councils that we had to think about the exit
".
“
At the top of Pau, I prepared a way out.
I stayed at the request of the States, because I thought the exit was a point of destabilization.
But the question arises, and it is not our vocation to stay there forever
, ”he repeated.
Emmanuel Macron warns against a failure of a development policy in Africa.
"
I say it with lucidity, if we are complicit in the failure of Africa, we will be accountable but we will also pay dearly, especially in terms of migration,
" he believes.
He reaffirms that we must therefore "
invest massively
" at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic "
with the equivalent of a Marshall Plan
" and that the international community must have "
the generosity to say that we are erasing part of debt to help Africans build their future
”.