Relations have strained between France and Mali in recent days. While France is engaged in Mali to fight jihadism as part of Operation Barkhane, the Malian ambassador to France on Wednesday accused French soldiers of "overflows" in the red light districts of Bamako. The diplomat was then recalled to his country after having angered the French authorities for "false and unacceptable" remarks.

In the aftermath of very ill-received statements by Ambassador Toumani Djimé Diallo in the Senate incriminating the Foreign Legion, Mali indeed decided on Thursday to recall its diplomat and to dispatch its Minister for Foreign Affairs to France to round off the angles, according to officials. Malians.

"Soothe relationships"

Malian Foreign Minister Tiébilé Dramé was due to leave for Paris on Thursday evening "to ease the situation," according to a source close to the presidency. "This visit is part of the strengthening of relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries," added a press release from Malian Foreign Affairs.

The Malian ambassador had been summoned earlier Thursday to the French foreign ministry, AFP learned. "We expressed our indignation at his baseless and shocking words from a country allied in the fight against terrorism," it was said at the Quai d'Orsay.

The day before, the Ambassador of Mali to France had denounced before the Defense Committee of the French Senate the "problems" posed according to him by the Foreign Legion on Malian soil.

"At times, in the 'Pigalle' of Bamako, you find them, tattooed all over their body, in the process of rendering an image which is not the one we know of from the (French) army. intrigue ", he had declared, explicitly mentioning the legionaries, yet absent from the Malian capital according to the staff.

"Clarifying" African positions on the French presence in the Sahel

Words very badly lived in Paris, while the Barkhane force has faced for many months the rise of an anti-French feeling in the Sahel, and that it has redoubled efforts in recent weeks to try to curb the spiral of violence in the region.

The French soldiers, present in the region since 2013 to fight against the jihadists, have just seen their number go from 4,500 to 5,100 in the face of the resurgence of attacks.

This violence - often interspersed with inter-community conflicts - killed 4,000 people in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in 2019, five times more than in 2016, according to the UN.

France itself lost 13 soldiers in an accident between two helicopters in operation in Mali in November. And Paris was openly annoyed at the end of 2019 with support deemed too timid on the part of the Sahelian authorities, including Mali.

"False accusations"

The words of the Malian ambassador added fuel to the fire and provoked an epidermic reaction on Thursday from the cabinet of the Minister of the Armed Forces, in a statement sent to AFP.

"Rather than conveying and propagating false accusations, we expect the ambassador of Mali to mobilize all his action for the implementation of the decisions of the Pau summit and the success of all," the cabinet snapped. by Florence Parly, recalling that there have been "almost no more French soldiers stationed in Bamako" since August 2014.

The day before, the French general staff had already objected that the legionaries were not "stationed in Bamako" and that they were not intended to go there. They "have no free quarter or rest time outside the operational bases [of Barkhane]", located in the north of the country, had assured the French army.

With AFP

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