Initial success at stopping jihadists has been followed by years of bloody failure
THE FRENCH army is no stranger to the Sahel. France colonised much of the semi-arid strip south of the Sahara in the 19th century, and in 2013 the country’s soldiers returned. As armed northern separatists and jihadists took over swathes of Mali and surged towards Bamako, the capital, the Malian government asked for help. French warplanes swooped and halted the jihadists’ advance. Shortly after, François Hollande, then French president, triumphantly strode the streets of the newly liberated city of Timbuktu as locals danced and waved the tricolore.
France turned this intervention into a counter-terrorism effort called “Operation Barkhane”. The aim was to stop jihadists in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger regrouping in remote areas, from where they could launch attacks in west Africa and, French officials sometimes added, possibly even Europe. Operation Barkhane began with some 3,000 troops backed by six combat planes and 20 helicopters, among other support vehicles, operating out of permanent bases in Chad, Mali and Niger. Later the French government talked of the need for economic development and a “return of the state”; in practice, the army dominated. Barkhane grew steadily. In 2020 a frustrated President Emmanuel Macron asked regional leaders whether they wanted French forces there. When they said they did, he increased French troop numbers from 4,500 to 5,100.
These are backed by 1,000 or so American soldiers and drones. Around 15,000 UN blue helmets patrol Mali, too. France, wary of perceptions of neo-colonialism, works with regional armies (which have suffered heavy losses) and has tried to “Europeanise” the effort. The European Union launched a programme to train the Malian army, and France’s allies, including the Czech Republic and Estonia, have sent hundreds of commandos to a special-forces mission called Takuba.
Yet the jihadist groups, which take advantage of local anger at massacres by national armies, have metastasised and grown stronger. One, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, is loosely affiliated to al-Qaeda. In 2016 a new group, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which pledged allegiance to Islamic State, began to launch attacks.
France has frequently boasted of killing jihadists, including senior leaders. Yet these scalps have not stopped their bloody progress. In 2016 around 800 people died in the conflict; in 2020 more than 6,000 were killed (see chart). The number of people forced from their homes in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger has jumped from around half a million in 2016 to around 3.5m today. The jihadists have spread from the north into central Mali, Niger and swathes of Burkina Faso. Now they threaten coastal states such as Benin and the Ivory Coast, too. The violence has further destabilised politics in the region, where governments have long failed to provide basic services, let alone security, to remote areas. In Mali in August 2020 soldiers overthrew the elected government and, having installed a few civilian figureheads as part of their government, the junta soon arrested them in a second coup in May 2021. In January 2022 soldiers in Burkina Faso followed suit. Both claimed their actions were necessary to better fight the jihadists.
As security has worsened, France’s popularity has plummeted. In 2021 only a third of Malians were in any way satisfied with Operation Barkhane. Of those annoyed, 45% believed the French were in league with terrorists and separatists. Popular anger at French soldiers, egged on by Russian social-media campaigns, has made them a useful target for the Malian junta. After Mr Macron announced in July 2021 that France wanted to halve the number of troops in the region, Mali reacted by bringing in Wagner Group, Russian mercenaries with a dreadful human-rights record, at a reported cost of $10m a month. The junta recently kicked out around 100 Danish special-forces soldiers, spuriously claiming there was no agreement in place for their deployment. Soon after, they also expelled the French ambassador.
Rather than waving the tricolore, some Malians and Burkinabe now burn it. In Mali protesters recently set fire to cardboard cutouts of Mr Macron. This week the French president and other European bigwigs will meet with their Sahelian counterparts (though the uniform-clad leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali will be conspicuously absent) to consider a possible withdrawal from Mali—and what to do next in the region. An honest starting point would be to admit that although France stopped Bamako from falling in 2013, it has failed to contain a growing insurgency and lost the battle for hearts and minds.
