Two days after their total withdrawal from Mali, French soldiers are still present in Africa.

Some 3,000 soldiers are thus still deployed in the Sahel, the French general staff said on Wednesday, while Bamako denounces "acts of aggression" committed by the anti-jihadist force Barkhane on its territory.

“The end of the presence of French soldiers from Operation Barkhane in Mali does not correspond to the end of Operation Barkhane.

The transformation of Operation Barkhane is much deeper than this departure from Mali,” said Colonel Pierre Gaudillière, spokesman for the staff.

Barkhane counted up to 5,500 soldiers at the height of its deployment in the Sahel.

“A new partnership approach”

"As part of the reorganization of Operation Barkhane outside Mali, approximately 3,000 soldiers will remain engaged in the Sahel and will carry out their missions from the existing areas of Niger and Chad, alongside our African partners: military combat partnership, operational military partnership, logistical operations”.

The transformation of Operation Barkhane "is part of a new partnership approach with the African countries that request it", continued Colonel Pierre Gaudillière, taking the example of Niger, where the French and Nigerien armies "lead joint patrols and carry out joint training".

Pushed out of Mali by the junta in power since 2020, which now works, even if it denies it, with the sulphurous Russian paramilitary group Wagner, the French army definitively left the country on Monday, after nine years of anti-jihadist struggle.

"France remains engaged in the Sahel", the French presidency said on Monday, as well as "in the Gulf of Guinea and (in) the Lake Chad region", the jihadists affiliated with the Al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups, long contained in the Sahel, now nibbling ground further south.

According to the French general staff, Paris also has, excluding Barkhane, 900 soldiers prepositioned in Côte d'Ivoire, 350 in Senegal and 400 in Gabon.

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