One year after the Pau summit, the Sahelian heads of state are meeting this Monday in Ndjamena, Chad,

Emmanuel Macron, who has already received face to face at the Elysee in recent weeks his counterparts from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, Emmanuel Macron will use this new meeting to take advantage of the intervention of the French army alongside the local armies in the fight against jihadist groups in the Sahel.

This Ndjamena summit will be devoted to amplifying the dynamics of the Pau summit which, according to the Elysee, has allowed a clear reversal of the balance of power with the jihadist armed groups, in the three borders of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The only point of disagreement with the French side,

will above all be the desire of the Malian authorities to initiate negotiations with certain jihadists.

This Bamako position seems to have echoes in Burkina Faso, where voices are being raised to encourage a negotiated solution

In any case, for two days, Emmanuel Macron and his Sahel counterparts should find the right combat strategies to consolidate the successes in the fight against the hydra of terrorism which has lasted too long

if we can congratulate ourselves on the successes achieved by the Barkhane force (…), it is nonetheless true that the overall results obtained by the G5 Sahel in six years of operation are more that mixed.

It is certainly on the strength of this observation that President Macron will, during this summit, discuss with his peers the question of the withdrawal of some six hundred French soldiers from the area, to be in line with his public opinion. in addition hostile to this military presence which did not make it possible to defeat the terrorists despite the impressive resources mobilized.

As for other heads of state of the G5 Sahel like the Malian Bah N'Daw,

they would be inclined to discuss with local armed groups,

Le Pays

to put an end to the violence fueled by community conflicts that have nothing religious.

By thus associating the stick and the carrot, peace could return more quickly than one could imagine, especially if the dimension "development" is taken into account as envisaged by this summit of Ndjamena.

the war against terrorism in this region remains to be won.

We must therefore not lower our guard

let alone put an end to Operation Barkhane, even if France is not called upon to drag on in the Sahel.

Rather, we need to think about how the strength of the G5 Sahel and the national armies can be more biting against terrorist groups.

The Ndjamena summit cannot do without answers to these questions if it wants to strengthen the gains made in this fight.

The document in question is a" confidential diplomacy "telegram issued on

July

,

1994 by the office of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppé, addressed to Ambassador Yannick Gérard, then representative of the Quai d'Orsay to the French soldiers sent to Rwanda as part of Operation Turquoise.

gives the instruction to transmit to the genocidal authorities the "wish that they leave" the zone controlled by the French armed forces.

A quarter of a century after the Rwandan tragedy, there is no doubt today that France knew who the organizers and sponsors of the genocide were, and where they were.

It is therefore with full knowledge of the facts that the government and the Elysee have let them go.