French President Emmanuel Macron pleaded, Tuesday, February 15, during a videoconference intervention at the G5 Sahel summit in N'Djamena, in favor of strengthening both the fight against jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the return of the State to the abandoned territories of the region.

One year after the Pau summit (south-west of France), "we have succeeded in obtaining real results in the area of ​​the three borders", between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, and the main target group, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) organization "has lost its grip and suffers many losses", greeted the French president from Paris.

But organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the GSIM (Support Group for Islam and Muslims) and Katiba Macina, "whose highest hierarchy continues to nurture a jihadist agenda", still pose a threat in the Sahel, said underlined Emmanuel Macron by promising "reinforced action" to "try to go and behead these organizations".

>> To read also: "G5 Sahel: some military successes of Barkhane in the middle of the terrorist chaos"

The president did not mention a reduction in the strength of the French anti-jihadist operation Barkhane, which currently has some 5,100 men in the Sahel.

Emmanuel Macron in the process welcomed the decision announced the day before by the Chadian President, Idriss Déby Itno, to send 1,200 soldiers to this zone of the "three borders".

It is "a strong and courageous decision which will consolidate the strength of the G5 Sahel", he commented.

In addition, "the international mobilization in favor of the Sahel has basically never been so powerful", argued the Head of State, thanking the European countries participating in the new group of special forces Takuba, "who thus agree to mutualize the risk of the ultimate sacrifice that our soldiers take ".

Call for the return of state services

Beyond the military component, the French president insisted on the need to "give a perspective to the populations of the Sahel", calling for a "second leap: that of the return of security and services to the populations" and demanding " an impetus at the highest level of the State "to reinvest the neglected territories of the region.

"It is through the collective and concrete action on the ground that we will succeed. France will continue to play its part because I know that everyone is mobilized here", he concluded.

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 Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

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.

With AFP

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