(3 minutes read)
- Mali summoned France’s ambassador yesterday (Tuesday), to register its “indignation” at French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent criticism of the country’s army-dominated government
- Tensions between the two countries are mounting. Paris intervened militarily against jihadists in 2013
- The underlying reason was that the Sahel state was in talks with Russian mercenaries.
Mali summoned France’s ambassador yesterday (Tuesday), to register its “indignation” at French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent criticism of the country’s army-dominated government. Tensions between the two countries are mounting. Paris intervened militarily against jihadists in 2013. The underlying reason was that the Sahel state was in talks with Russian mercenaries.
These tensions spilled over to  the UN General Assembly late last month. Mali’s interim prime minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga accused France over its decision to reduce its military deployment in the semi-arid Sahel region. Macron retorted that Maiga’s comments were “unacceptable” and suggested that Mali’s government was “not even really one”  referring to the coup in Mali led by Colonel Assimi Goita in May.
Mali’s foreign ministry stated that Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop had summoned France’s ambassador to inform him the displeasure of the Malian government’s “indignation and disapproval” of Macron’s comments. The minister reported to have told the French Ambassador that his country (France) should show restraint, avoiding value judgements, and stressed that Mali wanted a “constructive approach based on mutual respect”.
France’s intervention in Mali was after jihadists seized control of the north in 2012. Paris has since deployed thousands of troops across the Sahel region to combat the insurgency. Even then, Islamist violence has spread to central Mali and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. France decided a major scale back of its Sahel deployment in June, following a military takeover in Mali in August 2020
