François Hollande defended, Thursday, February 17, in an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), his decision, in 2013, to send French troops to Mali to fight the jihadists. But the former president would have decided on a “earlier withdrawal”from the coup of 2020, he assured. “I would have left earlier, since there was a break, since there were no more institutions or political dialogue” with the junta currently in power, he added, while insisting on the need to remain present in the Sahel.
He was speaking a few hours after France and its European partners formalized their military withdrawal from Malipushed out by the “obstructions” of the junta in power in Bamako, after nine years of anti-jihadist struggle led by Paris.
“France’s intervention in January 2013 was at the request of the Malian authorities and West African heads of state. Without it, Bamako would have been conquered by the jihadists and all the countries in the region would have been destabilized”recalled Mr. Holland. “If I had to do it again, I would make the same decision”, because she was “consistent with our values and capable of putting a stop to terrorism”.
“If this operation had not succeeded, jihadism would have taken hold”insisted the former head of state (2012-2017). “The sacrifice of the soldiers will not have been in vainnoted Mr. Holland. I want to greet them”
Corn “the double coup d’etat, in 2020 and 2021, caused a distancing, a distance, a rupture” and “as soon as the junta no longer wants to work with France, France cannot stay”he noted.
“Damaging record”
Several candidates for the presidential election have seen in the announced withdrawal of France from Mali a ” failure “ of Emmanuel Macron and criticized the strategy of Paris in the Sahel. If the majority of the contenders for the Elysée declared themselves rather favorable to the disengagement of this country, where 48 French soldiers of the operation “Barkhane” were killed, they multiplied the reproaches on the strategy engaged by the President of the Republic over the past five years.
“The pitiful withdrawal of Mali signs the overwhelming record of the Holland-Macron duo”reacted in a press release the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon – a reference to the commitment of French troops in Mali, decided by François Hollande in 2013. Evoking “a largely predictable disaster”he attacked with virulence a strategy which left the country ” in ruins “.
For her part, the socialist candidate, Anne Hidalgo, criticized a “failure for Emmanuel Macron” on Radio J and estimated, in a press release, that “if the instability of the region is not the sole responsibility of France, the President of the Republic must assume the choices made over the past five years, which have considerably weakened the influence of France”.
President Macron, who announced Thursday the gradual withdrawal of French, European and Canadian soldiers from this country led by a military junta, challenged any notion of” failure “. “I completely reject this term”he said, explaining that if France had not decided to intervene in 2013, there would have been “certainly a collapse of the Malian state”. He also argued “many successes” French soldiers, including the elimination of the emir of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in June 2020.
On the right, the candidate of the Republicans, Valérie Pécresse, estimated on LCI, Thursday, that “the way France is treated by the Malian junta is not dignified” and judged that he “don’t have to leave [de la région] like the Americans did in Afghanistan. We must not abandon this ground on which France defends universal values”.
Marine Le Pen, candidate for the National Rally, considered that “being forced to leave after being so humiliated by the Malian government is a failure”and deplored the absence of “exit strategy”.