MALI EXPELS FRENCH ENVOY AFTER FM’S “OUTRAGEOUS” COMMENTS

Mon 31 January 2022:

Mali’s government has given the French ambassador 72 hours to leave the country after the French authorities made “outrageous” comments regarding the country’s transitional government.

In the midst of rising tensions between the West African state and its European partners over military cooperation and elections, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated on Friday that Mali’s ruling junta was “out of control.”

He also referred to the junta as an illegal government.

French defence minister Florence Parly said on Saturday French troops would not stay in Mali if the price were too high.

“The French ambassador to Bamako was summoned and notified of a decision by the government inviting him to leave the national territory within 72 hours following hostile and outrageous comments by the French foreign affairs minister recently,” the government statement said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that the situation had become untenable, as the European allies agreed to draw up plans within two weeks on how to adapt their campaign, which covers Mali and the wider Sahel region, to changing circumstances.

“The conditions of our intervention, whether military, economic or political, have become harder and harder to manage,” French defence minister Florence Parly said.

“In short, we are not prepared to pay an unlimited price to remain in Mali.”

She did say, though, that ministers from the 15 nations involved in the European special force were unified in their desire to keep the operation going for the time being, “so we must determine its new conditions.”

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated sharply since Mali’s army led by Colonel Assimi Goita staged a coup in August 2020.

Former colonial power France has thousands of troops deployed in the Sahel state, which has been struggling to contain a rebellion that first emerged in 2012.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has accused Russian private military contractor Wagner Group of plundering Mali’s resources amid heightened tensions between Paris and the country’s military government in recent weeks, including over the fate of European forces deployed in the region to fight armed groups.

The Wagner mercenaries are “former Russian soldiers, armed by Russia and accompanied by Russian logistics”, Le Drian said.

“Wagner uses the weakness of certain states to implant itself… to reinforce Russia’s influence in Africa,” Le Drian added, though he said it did not seek to replace the Europeans in the region.

“They are already at the moment helping themselves to the country’s resources in exchange for protecting the junta. They are despoiling Mali,” he told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in remarks published on Sunday.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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