If France does not hide wanting to reduce its military presence in the Sahel, the French president did not finally mention Tuesday a reduction in the strength of the anti-jihadist operation, Barkhane, which currently has some 5,100 men in the Sahel.
He considered that it would be "paradoxical" to weaken this device at the present time.
France does not intend to reduce "immediately" the strength of its anti-jihadist operation, Barkhane, in the Sahel, which currently mobilizes 5,100 soldiers, Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday at a press conference in Paris.
>> ALSO READ
- Sahel: Louis Saillans, the marine commando who wants to fight terrorism differently
"No doubt significant changes will be made to our military system in the Sahel in due course, but they will not take place immediately," he said on the sidelines of the G5 Sahel summit in N'Djamena, explaining that '"It would be paradoxical to weaken our system at a time when we have a political and military alignment favorable to the achievement of our objectives".
"Decapitate" jihadist groups
Emmanuel Macron participated, by videoconference from Paris, in a G5 Sahel summit bringing together since Monday in N'Djamena five Sahel countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania and Chad), supposed to take stock of the actions carried out since the Pau summit (southwest of France) a year ago.
He also called for "beheading" the jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda which still constitute a threat in the Sahel, and urged the countries of the region to "take a political leap" and to return the state to abandoned territories.
>> ALSO READ
- G5 Sahel: what is the outcome of Operation Barkhane?
Since the Pau summit, where Paris had announced the sending of 600 French soldiers to reinforce the Sahel and designated the organization Islamic State in the Great Sahara (EIGS) "enemy number 1" in the region, "we have succeeded in obtaining real results in the area of the three borders ", between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, and the EIGS" has lost its grip and suffers many losses ", argued the French president.
Ensure security for the populations
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.