France tries to avoid its Afghanistan in Africa

France, the former colonial power in Africa, is facing one of the most difficult times in recent decades on this continent.

The rupture between Paris and the military junta that governs Mali has led President Emmanuel Macron to intensify preparations for a total withdrawal of French and international troops.

Nothing has been decided, but Macron's teams are consulting with their European and international partners before a possible departure from the country where the anti-terrorist mission in the Sahel region began nine years ago.

The withdrawal from Mali, amid growing anti-French sentiment in the region and a context of conflict in Africa with the thriving China and Russia, revives the specter of the withdrawal last summer of the United States from Afghanistan after a 20-year war. .

The differences between the Sahel and Afghanistan are significant: from the density of the presence and the number of Western casualties to the fact that the intervention in the Sahel began at the request of Mali to stop the jihadist advance.

But France, in the midst of an electoral campaign and at the head of the EU Council during this semester, faces the risk of humiliation in a continent where, even decades after decolonization, it preserved powerful networks of economic, political and military influence.

"There is no point in maintaining a presence [in Mali] when we cannot act effectively on the threat," says a French diplomatic source who requires anonymity.

“Staying in one place is not an end in itself.

We must continue, but only where we can have the levers to act.

And where the conditions for effective action against terrorist groups are not met, it is not necessary to seek to continue at all costs”.

Mali's withdrawal, if it ends up taking place, does not imply the withdrawal of the entire area.

"Fighting against these two organizations [Al Qaeda and the Islamic State] is not limited to being in Mali," says the aforementioned source.

And he adds: "We must think of a more agile device that can face the terrorist threat on a scale of the countries of the region."

The trigger for the current crisis was the expulsion, on Tuesday, of Joël Meyer, the French ambassador in Bamako.

The expulsion came after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the Malian rulers as an "illegitimate board".

The junta is in power as a result of a double coup and is subject to sanctions by the EU and the Community of West African States.

The Bamako regime has also ordered the withdrawal of the Danish contingent that was to join Takuba, the special forces operation operating in the Sahel that is to replace, with fewer and more efficient troops, the more robust Operation Barkhane.

Added to this markedly anti-terrorist operation is the EU training mission and the UN stabilization mission.

France denounces the presence in Mali of mercenaries from the Russian company Wagner, allegedly protected by the Kremlin.

"It is inconceivable that the French army is linked directly or indirectly to Wagner," says the aforementioned French diplomatic source.

"It is a group with a militia behavior and that works with rules of action that have nothing to do with ours."

The deep deterioration of relations between Bamako and Paris is fueled by a growing anti-French sentiment that permeates the entire region.

The pre-coup protests in Mali and Burkina Faso and the celebratory demonstrations that followed were full of slogans against the French military presence in the Sahel.

The blockade of the Barkhane convoy in Burkina Faso and Niger last November reflects this rejection.

“The security situation has not only not improved, it has seriously deteriorated. For this reason, many people question the sincerity of the French military intervention, of its intentions”, says Gilles Yabi, political analyst responsible for the Wathi

. "It is not just Barkhane's failure", continues this expert, "there are also old resentments, inadequate ways of expressing themselves by some ministers that confirm the prejudice of a traditional arrogance or powerful links with the African elites that transfer the feeling that it is Paris that directs politics”.

In Senegal, a country for now away from jihadist violence, the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, whose good results in the recent local elections make him a serious contender for the presidency in 2024, has integrated the rejection of France as one of the axes of his speech.

In the outbreak of popular anger a year ago in Dakar and other cities in the country, looting was not widespread: it only affected gas stations and supermarkets owned by French companies.

In this context, if the departure of the French troops from Mali is confirmed and with the weakened Burkina Faso in full recomposition after the coup d'état on January 24, all eyes are turned to Niger as the new French bastion in the central Sahel, since there already a large part of Barkhane's and the United States' air assets are concentrated.

The challenges are enormous.

The rejection of the foreign military presence is also widespread in this country and its government fears that this feeling will increase if the coming and going of Western forces intensifies.

“Niger has a long tradition of strong Army influence in politics and its authorities know that they are not exempt from the risk of a coup, as in Mali or Burkina Faso,” explains Yabi.

Part of the rejection of France and by extension of the Western presence in the Sahel is spurred on by pro-Russian activists.

This country has set out to recover the ground lost since the time of the Soviet Union with military interventions dotted with the presence of mercenaries from private companies.

The decline of the 'Françafrique'

Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017 with the desire to renew France's African policy. The old strategy was marked by colonialism and, starting in the 1960s, by decolonization and the close ties that General Charles De Gaulle and his successors established with African regimes. It was in those years that the image of the so-called

was consolidated , the dense network of economic, military and political interests —interests not always confessed— between Paris and the French-speaking African capitals.

Africa was a pillar of French global influence, according to Antoine Glaser, co-author with Pascal Airault of the book

(Macron's African Trap, 2021).

“When you're president of the French Republic,” says Glaser, “to what do you owe your diplomacy of influence?

To the permanent chair in the UN Security Council, to the nuclear power and to the fact of being an African power”.

But in a globalized Africa and with a power like China gaining ground, the

is a thing of the past.

"La

doesn't obsess me. It's something that will happen. It's generational," Macron said in an interview published in Glaser and Airault's book. "In my opinion," Glaser now says by phone, "a historical page is turning." And he adds: “It is as if France were a great ship: it continued to be influential in certain countries as if we were still in the post-colonial era, but now we are in something entirely different”. 

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