Macron and the presidents of the G5 Sahel salute the memory of the French who fell in Mali - France 24

Pau (AFP)

Wreaths of flowers and meditation: alongside Emmanuel Macron, the presidents of the G5 Sahel paid tribute Monday in Pau, in the southwest of France, to seven French soldiers who fell in late November in Mali during an anti operation -jihadiste.

These soldiers of Operation Barkhane, who were among the 13 victims of a collision of two helicopters, all belonged to the 5th regiment of helicopter gunships of Pau. It was on this basis, in front of their comrades in arms, that a solemn ceremony was held at the beginning of the afternoon in their memory.

After greeting the families - including the Haut-Rhin senator Jean-Marie Bockel, who lost his son in Mali - Emmanuel Macron joined his G5 Sahel allies.

This ceremony precedes a summit organized by Mr. Macron to clarify the strategy of the anti-jihadist alliance in the Sahel and to tighten the links between allies, overshadowed by an anti-French sentiment which is growing in African public opinion.

The meeting was to start around 4.30 p.m. local time (3.30 p.m. GMT), before a working dinner to which will be joined the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, the President of the Commission of the African Union Moussa Faki and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel .

This summit, initially organized by Mr. Macron in December - in a manner considered cavalier by African officials who had felt it to be a convocation - was postponed for a month due to a bloody attack in Niger.

This delay and the multiplication of increasingly violent attacks in the area (89 Nigerien soldiers killed Thursday in the Chinégodar camp) seemingly eased tensions with Paris.

The French operation Barkhane mobilizes 4,500 men in the Sahelo-Saharan strip, a vast area like Europe, to fight against armed groups. But, after six years of uninterrupted presence, and 41 dead on the French side, the horizon is more and more sealed.

Jihadist attacks persist in northern Mali and have spread to the center of the country as well as to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

© 2020 AFP