Mali: we must “start to withdraw now”, says ex-minister Hervé Morin


Former Defense Minister Hervé Morin estimated on Thursday February 3 that France should “right now start to fall backto leave Mali, the situation having evolved towardspattern known in Afghanistan“.

At some point you have to draw conclusions, and so right now, you have to start withdrawing“, Estimated the president of the Centrists on Public Senate. Certainly “you don’t withdraw 5,000 men overnight” and “it must be done with dignity, properly“, but the operation “Barkhane needs to be reviewed from top to bottom and we probably need to retreat to Niger, build a model in which we are able to intervene in the event of an emergency.“, developed the president of the Normandy region.

Very clearly, all other things being equal -it’s not the same context-, the pattern is unfortunately getting closer every day to the one we saw in Afghanistan: we arrived to fight against jihadism, the idea was to have a political agreement, to rebuild a state“, but France”today increasingly appears as an occupying force“, so “the aim of our military intervention has failed“, he noted. “The equation“was anyway”impossible“according to him, because”whatever means are deployed, which are enormous», the territories to be reconquered are «gigantic“. Furthermore, “we are on asymmetrical wars, between on the one hand the military power of Western forces, and on the other terrorism, harassment, attacks“. The former minister further considered that the dismissal of the French ambassador by the ruling junta in Mali was “very clearly a break“.

In this diplomatic crisis between Paris and Bamako, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Wednesday that a debate would be organized in Parliament to discuss France’s military commitment in Mali. While France had already planned to reduce the number of its soldiers present in the Sahel as part of Operation Barkhane, government spokesman Gabriel Attal indicated on Tuesday that the partner countries of the European Special Forces Grouping Takuba would “work by mid-February» to the adaptation of their system in Mali, with regard to the «progressive isolationof the country ruled by a junta.



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