Paris (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday received Malian Prime Minister Boubou Cissé to discuss security cooperation against jihadist groups, who continue their attacks despite more than six years of international intervention.
On an official visit to France at the invitation of Edouard Philippe, Mr. Cissé thanked the Head of State for his support for the renewal of the mandate of the UN forces in Mali (Minusma).
"Mali's fight against terrorism is also the fight of France and Europe, French and European soldiers are comrades in the same fight against inhuman radicalism and violent extremism," said Malian Prime Minister after the interview with Mr. Macron.
Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also requested UN funding for the African G5 Sahel anti-terrorist force (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad).
The summit of West African countries Saturday in Burkina Faso should also call for increased international mobilization against jihadism in the Sahel-Saharan strip. The proposals from the Ouagadougou meeting will be presented to the UN General Assembly at the end of September.
Northern Mali had fallen in March-April 2012 under the guise of jihadist groups, largely dispersed by a military intervention launched in January 2013 at the initiative of France and which is currently continuing.
But entire areas are beyond the control of the Malian, French and UN forces. A peace agreement supposed to isolate the jihadists definitively was signed in 2015, but the violence spread from the north to the center of the country, despite the strengthening, a few months ago, of the presence of the United Nations Mission in Mali ( Minusma).
Fourteen passengers on a bus were killed last week in central Mali during the explosion of a small-scale mine as their vehicles passed.
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© 2019 AFP