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After almost ten years of existence, the “Barkhane” operation in the Sahel is officially over. In any case, according to the Elysée, this is what the Head of State Emmanuel Macron should formally announce, Wednesday, November 9, during a planned trip to the naval base of Toulon, where he must engage in a vast exercise in military doctrine, by presenting a new “strategic national review” (RNS).
This announcement is the end point of an operation that began in January 2013 in Mali with the launch of “Serval”, quickly renamed “Barkhane”, in August 2014. It is also the end of a painful process of withdrawal of Mali, where the French soldiers were mainly deployed. This was started in mid-2021 and the last French soldiers of “Barkhane” left the country in mid-August.
If the dismantling of the French bases started because of the political instability in Bamako – two coups d’etat in less than twelve months – it accelerated from the end of 2021 due to the increasingly active collaboration of the Malian regime with the paramilitary group Wagner, close to Russian power. This situation served as a way out for the executive, in the face of the increasingly visible impotence in the field of its fight against terrorism.
Bilateral agreements
This end of the “Barkhane” operation, which counted up to 5,100 men – excluding special forces – does not however mark the complete departure of the French soldiers from the Sahel. Some 3,000 soldiers are still deployed in Chad and especially in Niger, where France has centralized a large part of its military resources. But these men will no longer act formally as part of an “external operation” (opex), said the Elysée on Tuesday.
A difference in mandate and relatively new legal conditions for the exercise of French soldiers, apart from those who had until then been involved in cooperation, often limited to training local security forces. Their actions will now mainly be framed by bilateral agreements signed with the host countries, generally of the Sofa type (“status of forces agreement”).
This development should not fail to bring its share of questions. The actions of the French soldiers in Africa will be able to go to the future of the “training” to ” support “ – to treat or evacuate the wounded in combat, or even logistical aid – up to “support”, according to the Elysee. That is to say, potentially, up to combat accompaniment or “fire support” (air strike for example), as is currently the case in Niger or Burkina Faso.
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