It is an inglorious end to an armed intervention that began in a euphoric way and which ends, nine years later, against a backdrop of crisis between Mali and France, two countries which believed themselves to be the time of the first victories against the jihadists. linked by an unfailing friendship and find themselves today back to back.
The fault lies with the transitional authorities, “on a trajectory of rupture with their international partners” denounced the Elysée on the eve of the announcement of the hasty withdrawal of French troops from Mali, pointing to the will of “cling to power” of the junta and the use of Wagner’s militiamen in the “very brutal methods”.
If it was necessary to date in time this rupture, the moment when everything came to a standstill, there is no doubt that May 24, 2021 and the days that followed were decisive. In Bamako, Colonel Assimi Goïta, leader of the junta which overthrew Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020, then wanted to prevent a government reshuffle and had the transitional president and the prime minister he had appointed nine months earlier arrested. . Immediately Emmanuel Macron denounces “a coup within an unacceptable coup”.
Then, the same week, during an official trip to Rwanda, the French president warned in an interview at Sunday newspaper that French soldiers will leave Mali if the authorities in Bamako negotiate with the jihadist leaders and that France “would not stay alongside a country where there is no more democratic legitimacy or transition”.
At his side, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the head of diplomacy, lets loose his feelings towards the five officers at the head of the junta in a small committee: “But what jerks! » Like many in Paris, the minister most involved in the Malian file since January 2013 and the start of the “Serval” operation – he then occupied the defense portfolio – had looked at them until then with the hope that they remobilize their army.
In the aftermath, France announces the temporary suspension of its joint operations with Malian soldiers pending “guarantees” policies on the path taken by the transition. The decision is experienced in Bamako as the beginnings of a release. Was it at this moment that was born or strengthened the idea of turning to Russia and calling on the mercenaries of the Wagner group, who would now be close to a thousand to operate on the ground alongside the Malian armed forces?
Accumulated resentments
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