French withdrawal from Mali: logistical headache in sight

VSertes, Emmanuel Macron has taken and announced the decision to end Operation Barkhane. But the fact that it has been inevitable and in the pipeline since Colonel Assimi Goïta took power by force in August 2020 does not prevent the logistical maneuver of evacuating the 2,500 French personnel currently present in Mali will prove to be particularly complex. Let’s take out the calculator.

The last military evacuation organized by the army concerned, between September and the end of December 2021, the three areas of northern Mali, namely Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu. Traditionally, the French army leaves very little behind. In this case, the 450 evacuees were not camping! They had a hundred vehicles…