Opinion Policy Analysis by Johnny Achkar, Contributor

March 20th, 2021

France tended to view its former colonies in Africa as an exclusive area of influence in the decades since the 1960s, when the colonial era ended. The country has interfered militarily on the continent more than 50 times since then. In order to maintain this sphere of dominance in Africa, France relied on its military, as if the continent was its pre-carré, or 'backyard.' Even now, the nation has several thousand troops deploying to permanent bases and foreign campaigns throughout the continent. Peacekeeping and security are presently the overriding reasons for France's involvement in Africa, in addition to deep historical and cultural ties. These new notions have been materialized through Operation Barkhane, launched on August 1, 2014. However, Paris’ latest intervention has recently faced mounting condemnation. 

Africa is the most prominent strategic theatre to France, to the extent where France was labeled 'Africa's gendarme' during the Cold War, when its military was constantly mobilized in response to conflicts or emergencies. France carried out more than 130 military operations in Africa from 1945–2005, many of them in its former colonies. France and its former African colonies preserved remarkably close ties throughout the post-colonial period. This allowed it to preserve its dominance in the General Assembly of the United Nations and maintain its claim to the title of great power. France's Africa policy steadily shifted in the 1990s. With the genocide in Rwanda, 1994 represented a turning point, when the much-criticized role of France in the nation prompted it to decrease its permanent presence. This situation was furthermore aggravated as the French attempted to help Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko until the very end.  

As recently as 2012, when François Hollande became president, this pattern prevailed; his conveyed vision was to move in this path. Nevertheless, with the Arab Spring and the evolving world order, Africa has become a new area of focus for numerous international criminal and terrorist networks. For example, drug cartels in Latin America are using West African nations to distribute cocaine in European markets. Apart from criminal networks, militant Islamic networks such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram, among others, have flourished in the Sahel region. Hollande restored the permanent military presence of France and initiated military operations in both Mali and the Central African Republic. The French interfered in Mali in 2012, Operation Serval, to prevent the jihadist incursion into Bamako from northern Mali. The earlier engagements of the French in Africa with Guinea and the Central African Republic shows the revival of French interests in an area of such strategic significance for France. President Hollande pledged a fast French Malian and Central African adventure, and now France is looking at a long-term war against terrorism in the Sahel region.

Emmanuel Macron, President of France since 2017, has inherited two foreign operations in Africa and has on many occasions shared the ambition, like Hollande, to continue them. The first, Mission Corymbe, was originally planned to protect French oil exploration and other economic interests in the Gulf of Guinea, but is now designed to minimize maritime instability and contribute to capacity building in the war against piracy and drug trade, for example by hosting naval exercises in the region. The second is Operation Barkhane, a counter-terrorism operation in the Sahel region.

Hollande initiated it in 2014, with a contingent of 4,000 French troops deployed in collaboration with five countries involved, all former French colonies: Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauretania, Niger, and Chad, a coalition known as the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (G5S). Cooperation between the G5S involves border security and counter-terrorism activities, with France helping to organize and resolve major capacity gaps. While France is said to see the G5S as an 'escape plan from the Sahel,' the force remains dependent on French funding. This past Tuesday, President Macron held a virtual summit of G5S in which he stated,” France has no immediate plans to adjust its military presence in Africa's Sahel region, and any changes will depend on other countries contributing troops”. He later added, "Significant changes will undoubtedly be made to our military system in the Sahel in due course, but they will not take place immediately.”

As the ongoing conflict in the Sahel continues to worsen, the reasons of escalating violence are discussed on a regular basis, but no one is actively taking action to combat it. Operation Barkhane, named after a crescent-shaped dune in the Sahara Desert, was designed to become the French cornerstone of counter-terrorism in the Sahel region. Even as French forces are perfectly able to eliminate jihadists, they are either unable or unwilling to stop jihadism from spreading. The French are able to use superior military forces to repulse the conventional attack and recapture territories, but they are not so readily able to hold the ground against the asymmetrical and unorthodox tactics of the scattered jihadist foe. Successive studies by the UN Secretary-General on Mali in 2014 have indicated that security conditions are worsening. Another mistake was in endeavoring to annihilate profoundly versatile transnational militants with a mission restricted to one country that has very open boundaries. Subsequently, Operation Serval dislodged the jihadist issue from Mali into adjoining nations, particularly Niger. Another tactical blunder is rooted in the idea of 'partnership' with the Sahel military, and Barkhane seems oblivious to the poisonous essence of these allies. In the last decade, all five armies of the aim states have overthrown or risen against their own regimes. Their record against citizens, whom they nominally defend and represent in these nations, is often even worse. Moreover, French peacekeepers have faced accusations of violence and abuse. For numerous months, an obscure number of individuals in the French military, commissioned to shield regular citizens from the viciousness destroying the nation, constrained young men to perform oral sex on them, as per declarations gathered by the United Nations. France has indicated that it would conduct an official examination relating to the allegations against its troops.

As the ongoing conflict in the Sahel continues to worsen, the reasons of escalating violence are discussed on a regular basis, but no one is actively taking action to combat it. Several points should be illustrated about the success rate of such a massive counter-terrorism mission. First, as shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Mali, without a powerful state and a secure form of government, in addition to regional defense, the long-term effectiveness of any counter-terrorism activity would be challenging. The warfare dimension of this mission could proceed indefinitely without the addition and introduction of a state-building factor in each country of the Sahel region. Enhancing stability in the field with boots on the ground to ensure the safety of the European homeland can only be a one-dimensional approach. Afghanistan is a prime example of this. Second, apart from African cooperation, would the United States contribute to the war effort? After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American public grew war-weary. A vast number of Americans are opposed to the notion that the United States should assume the role of a multinational police officer. Furthermore, for 60 years, French interventionist policies aimed at "stabilizing" France's African allies have strengthened brutal, reactionary and oppressive political orders. French security, or even the illusion, has allowed all of these governments to implement corrupt, racist, and sometimes genocidal policies. Empowering French and foreign attempts to help Sahelian states against jihadist and other militant groups risk reinforcing precisely those governments, regime elites and security forces whose activities have led to the crisis that France is seeking to address.

Addressing these implications of a faulty armed conflict policy to create more durable peace and stability in Mali and the Sahel will not be simple or swift. The diplomatic solution to the internal crisis in northern Mali is a crucial factor that has been stifled by the French military interference, and that is very much the responsibility of the elected government of Mali. Only this, and a binding truce and demobilization, will contribute to a more complex and sustainable stabilization plan for the North with industrial growth in the foreground.