Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno announced on Monday February 15 the dispatch of 1,200 soldiers to the so-called "three borders" area, between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, to fight against jihadists, on the sidelines of 'a summit of the five Sahel countries with France in N'Djamena.

This announcement comes at a time when the French want to see the countries of the region take over military, but also political, their commitment to the Sahel eight years old.

G5 Sahel defense ministers (Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso) traveled to N'Guigmi, Niger, near the border with Chad, on Monday, where the soldiers are stationed who will then be deployed to the “three borders” region, according to Chadian state television.

The sending of Chadian soldiers was initially announced a year ago during the previous summit in Pau (South-West of France).

But the operation had been delayed by the growing jihadist threat on the shores of Lake Chad, and by a disagreement between N'djamena and its partners on the modalities, in particular financial, of this deployment.

Tactical successes but still daily attacks and abuses

The other four heads of state of the G5 Sahel alliance, the Mauritanians Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, Malien Bah Ndaw, Burkinabè Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and Nigerien Mahamadou Issoufou, had made the trip, but not Emmanuel Macron.

Remained in Paris due to the Covid-19 crisis, the French president participated with them in a videoconference meeting which nothing filtered out.

The N'Djamena summit takes place a year after that of Pau, which, faced with the threat of a rupture under the blows of jihadists, had led to a military reinforcement in the zone of the "three borders" and the sending of 600 additional French soldiers, increasing them from 4,500 to 5,100.

Despite the claimed tactical successes, the picture remains very bleak in the three main affected countries.

More than eight years after the start of the crisis, hardly a day goes by without an armed attack, the explosion of an artisanal mine or atrocities against civilians.

The bar of two million displaced persons was crossed in January.

A year after Pau and the time of the "military surge", must come to N'Djamena that of the "diplomatic, political and development surge", had advanced the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian before the summit.

The French army claims to have seriously weakened the Islamic State organization (OEI) and killed several Al-Qaeda leaders in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The number of attacks on military camps declined in 2020.

But the two main jihadist nebulae remain very active.

"Adjustment" in sight

And France, confronted at home with growing questions about a financially and humanly costly anti-jihadist commitment (50 soldiers killed since 2013), agrees that the remedy cannot be only military.

Paris considers that too little has been done by its Sahelian partners on the political front, for example in Mali to apply a peace agreement signed with the former rebellion in the North, or to bring back teachers and doctors to the localities. that they have deserted.

The N'Djamena summit could "mark the effort targeted at the upper hierarchy" of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), a jihadist alliance affiliated with Al-Qaeda, explains the Elysee.

More generally in the Sahel, France does not hide its desire to reduce the sails of its army.

She will "adjust her effort", assured Mr. Macron in January.

But Paris seems hesitant to immediately cut its workforce.

Paris is counting in particular on "Sahelization", that is to say the passing of the baton to the national armies that France forms with the European Union.

These, under-trained and under-equipped, remain vulnerable.

President Déby himself acknowledged these weaknesses on Monday and "invited all member states to work towards full empowerment of the G5 Sahel joint force by providing it with its own financial and logistical resources".

In addition, politically, Paris insists that it is time to consolidate the military successes of recent months by reinstalling the state where it is absent.

"A lot of efforts are being made by our governments to (...) ensure the return of the State and the administrations to the territories", argued Idriss Déby Itno.

But "the socio-economic situation in our countries is not very bright (...), which is why we are making an urgent appeal to all our partners to provide us with the additional resources they have promised to enable us to carry out our development programs ", he concluded by invoking in particular the" track of the cancellation of the debt ".

With AFP

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