The Irish Times view on France’s withdrawal from Mali: an inglorious end

The departure of the last French troops will also call into question the viability of the 12,000-strong UN Minusma peacekeeping mission

French Foreign Legion troops in northeastern Mali, near the border with Niger, in February 2020. French troops have been fighting Islamists in Mali for nearly a decade. Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times
French Foreign Legion troops in northeastern Mali, near the border with Niger, in February 2020. French troops have been fighting Islamists in Mali for nearly a decade. Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times

When France in March announced its intention to withdraw some 5,000 troops from Mali, Le Monde wrote of what it called “an inglorious end to an armed intervention that began in euphoria and which ends, nine years later, against a backdrop of crisis between Mali and France.”

Mali, as the last troops left this week, complained formally, though without evidence, to the UN Security Council that the French were assisting Islamist groups against the government.

The French intervention in 2013 successfully stemmed Islamist insurgents’ advance and returned key cities such as Timbuktu to government control. But extremists swiftly regrouped and have in recent years taken over swathes of territory in the country, exploiting political turmoil, poverty and the weakness of local authorities. Following last year’s May 21st military coup, the government, which had been keen initially to use French and UN troops to assist the Malian army in its fight against Al Qaeda and Isis-linked rebels, has turned to Russia and its private mercenaries of the Wagner Group to support its war.

France, the former colonial power , has previously intervened militarily at least 40 times in Africa in 60 years. It will reduce its Operation Barkhane from more than 5,000 to 2,500 men, who will be based in Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, where Islamists also have significant bases.

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The departure of the last French troops will also call into question the viability of the 12,000-strong UN Minusma peacekeeping mission. Minusma, which currently includes 14 Irish soldiers with a German task force – shortly to return home – is a largely reactive rather than peace-enforcing force, but its own relationship with the government has grown tense over UN calls to allow freedom of movement for peacekeepers to investigate human rights abuses in which the authorities and Wagner have been implicated. Those calls have been rejected.

Some countries, including Denmark, Germany and Egypt, have also pulled out their UN contingents, citing increased security concerns.