G5 Sahel summit: Barkhane at the crossroads

Audio 03:59

This summit in Ndjamena will be an opportunity to take stock of the security situation in the Sahel or to discuss the evolution of the format of the Barkhane force.

© AFP-Sebastien Rieussec

Text by: Franck Alexandre

9 min

France and its G5 Sahel partners meet on Monday and Tuesday in Ndjamena, a year after the Pau summit.

Citing health reasons, President Emmanuel Macron will not physically go to Chad but will participate by videoconference.

This summit will be an opportunity to take stock of the security situation in the Sahel, the evolution of the format of the Barkhane force could be mentioned, and Paris also calls on its Sahelian partners to take a diplomatic and political leap.

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A few weeks ago, on the strength of the results obtained by

Barkhane

against the Islamic State in the Great Sahara (EIGS), designated enemy number one, everything converged towards a reduction of the French military footprint.

The reinforcement of 600 soldiers, decided on last year, made it possible to weaken the EIGS, in particular in the zone of the “three borders”.

The operational military partnership, which combines French and Malian soldiers on the ground, is working.

The establishment last year of a joint headquarters in Niamey is also bearing fruit, with Barkhane as a driving belt, supporting the Sahelian armies, themselves supported by the joint force of General Namata: the maneuvers s 'follow, the victories too.

► Also to listen: Barkhane: those who are leaving

Further west, in Gourma, the situation is much more critical.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi) now appears as the new threat.

His katibas are very aggressive, very structured, worries General Conruyt, commander of the Barkhane force.

Under these conditions, reducing the troops no longer seems very appropriate. 

"

 The"

surge

", the additional manpower which had been decided within the framework of the Pau summit, allowed Barkhane to gain freedom of action, to be able to create more uncertainty, unpredictability on our adversaries,

underlines General Conruyt.

 We saw it well in Operation Bourrasque in particular

[joint operation carried out in Liptako last fall, editor's note], 

when you are able to create this uncertainty and this unpredictability on the adversary, you obtain results.

The more you are, the more you can chain operations, the more you can maintain the pressure on the opponent.

It is there that he makes mistakes, it is there that the moral forces of his combatants abandon him.

This "

surge

" allowed us to go to the end of the EIGS refuge zones and it is probably thanks to this that the establishment of the European force Takuba, can take place under the best conditions in the Liptako. 

"

Above all, France fears the extension of this terrorist nebula towards the countries of the Gulf of Guinea.

The computers seized last June during the neutralization of Abdelmalek Droukdal, the emir of Aqmi, reveal, underlines the Ministry of the Armed Forces, a very successful regional project.

So much so that Paris, today clearly designates the heads of the katibas affiliated with Al-Qaeda as its target: like Iyad Ag Ghali and his Rally for the Victory of Islam and Muslims (RVIM) as well as his fellow student Amadou Koufa, leader of

Katiba Macina,

which operates in central Mali.

Paris calls for a political leap 

Beyond military victories, French diplomacy believes that military action must henceforth produce political effects.

If the Pau summit, a year ago, was that of the military burst, that of Ndjamena, this Monday, will be that of the

diplomatic, political

and development

burst

.

This message will be carried by Emmanuel Macron.

And in this sense, a few days ago in the Senate, its head of diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian underlined his attachment to the Algiers political agreements of 2015 on peace in Mali: “

 The Algiers agreement enabled the framework in which we can move forward politically now.

The problem is that there was never the will to make it happen, that's the difficulty!

Now we have to take action.

But this questioning is valid for those who sit on the monitoring committee of the Algiers agreements and in particular the actors in the area and particularly those in Mali.

 "

The north of Mali and its political impasse with the Tuaregs of Azaouad and on which the Algiers accords are focused are, however, only part of the equation, recalls Niagalé Bagayoko, political scientist: "

 The epicenter of this crisis is located in the center of Mali, which is not taken into consideration by the Algiers agreement and this crisis has spread to neighboring countries, in this case to Burkina Faso, Niger and we are seeing surges in direction of Senegal, even Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, coastal countries 

, ”she recalls.

The objective of the Ndjamena summit is therefore to put politics back at the heart of the settlement of the crisis: to accelerate the return of states, to permanently curb jihadist expansion and thus ultimately allow a reduction in the French system in the Sahel.

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  • G5 Sahel

  • Africa

  • AQIM

  • France

  • Mali

  • Burkina Faso

  • Niger

  • Mauritania

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