Paris denounces a “manipulation” against the French army in Bounti where civilians were allegedly killed

The chief of staff of the French armies, General François Lecointre, denounced on Saturday a “manipulation” against the French force Barkhane after a UN investigation accusing him of having killed 19 civilians gathered for a wedding in Mali . “Very clearly, it was an attack against the French army, against Operation Barkhane, against the legitimacy of our commitments”, he declared in
an interview with the French dailyLe Figaro.

The “errors” and “biases” of the report of the Directorate of Human Rights of Minusma, the UN Mission in Mali, “stem in part from a manipulation”, estimated General Lecointre. The investigation concluded that an air strike carried out by the French army had targeted civilians gathered for a wedding near Bounti (center), and not just jihadists as Paris claims, which refutes any blunders.

An “information war”

The French authorities have always assured that there was no marriage, that intelligence had “formally” established that it was a gathering of jihadists and that the intervention of a patrol of French planes Dropping three bombs had “neutralized” about thirty jihadists. “I think that we will now be systematically confronted with this type of attempt to seek to hinder us, to discredit us, to delegitimize our action, to mount the populations against our action”, added the Chief of Staff of the armed forces.

Since independence and then jihadist rebellions in 2012 in the North, Mali has been in the throes of a multifaceted turmoil that has left thousands dead, civilians and combatants, and hundreds of thousands displaced, despite the intervention of forces from the UN, African and French. France, which engages around 5,100 men within Barkhane, has already been the subject of suspicion of a mistake, but never to such a detailed report from the UN. French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly spoke of an “informational war” that jihadist groups would wage. The Malian authorities had provided a version of the events consistent with that of France.