The French War on Terror in Africa
Written by Tyler Alexander; Edited by Andrew Ma
Published on February 26th, 2024
Introduction
2023 saw the near-total collapse of France's military presence in West Africa. A string of high-profile coups in the Sahel, the region straddling the transition zone between the Sahara and the Sudanian savanna, have chased the French out of their former colonial holdings. Coupled with the disastrous end of the eight year-long counterterrorism mission Operation Barkhane in November of 2022, France has departed the Sahel just as violence and instability are reaching heretofore unseen levels. The following will examine the breakdown of the French War on Terror, and what France’s departure from the region means for the future of the Sahel.
Mali War and Operation Barkhane
France is no stranger to military intervention in Africa. Indeed, a cornerstone of Françafrique, France’s sphere of influence over its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, was France’s permanent military presence on the continent. Since decolonization in 1960, the French military has intervened over fifty times in Africa. These interventions have ranged from brief counter-insurgency missions and evacuations to longer-term peacekeeping operations. While France would scale back the scope of its operations in Africa following it’s failure to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it nevertheless maintained a force of 5,500 troops on the continent.
Africa became a hotbed for violent extremism in the 21st century, particularly with the rise of jihadists groups like Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. This posed a security risk for Africans and Europeans both. The resurrection of France’s military presence in Africa would begin in 2013, with its intervention in Mali’s civil war.
The Mali War began in January of 2012, when Tuareg separatists known as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA) declared their intention to establish a breakaway state in Mali. In March, the Malian president was deposed by the military for his inability to respond to the brewing crisis. By April, the NMLA had overrun Mali’s north, and proclaimed the new state of Azawad. The NMLA had initially allied itself with Islamist groups, but the two sides soon came to blows over the future of the new state. By July, the Islamists had driven the NMLA from the north, and began a southward push towards the center of Mali.
In January of 2013, Mali appealed for military aid from France, who quickly obliged. Under the name Operation Serval, the Islamist incursion was halted, Mali’s northern cities were re-taken, and nearly half the Islamist fighters were killed or captured, all in just a few months. It was an overwhelming success for the French, who were regarded as heroes in Mali. By August, Mali transitioned back to a civilian government under Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. In August 2014, Operation Serval was supplanted by Operation Barkhane, a wider counter-terrorism effort aimed at fighting terrorist groups throughout the Sahel region.
French troops in Timbuktu, Mali.
France began the operation by deploying 4,500 troops in cooperation with the Group of Five for the Sahel (G5S), a military alliance between Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauretania and Chad. Unlike Serval, a short operation with well-defined objectives, Barkhane was wider in scope and ill-defined. While French politicians made it clear that Barkhane would not be indefinite, the nondescript objective of “assist[ing] the G5 Sahel armed forces in fighting terrorist networks in the Sahel-Sahara region” would result in a French military presence that did little more than provide general counterterrorism support and execute sporadic strikes on terrorist groups, with no definite endpoint.
France took a purely military approach towards the Sahel, steadfastly refusing dialogue with Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), the largest Islamist group in Mali, despite both JNIM and the Malian government expressing degrees of support for it. France made questionable choices of allies in its fight against the jihadists, including the NMLA, a move that was akin to allying with terrorists in the eyes of many Malians. It would also ally with ethnic militias responsible for atrocities against Fula communities, giving the impression that France tacitly permitted such violence.
The French military and its G5S collaborators committed their share of violence against civilians, too. In 2020, state security forces were responsible for the plurality of civilian deaths in Burkina Faso and Mali. In January of 2021, French airstrikes targeted a Malian wedding celebration, mistaking it for a terrorist gathering, leading to the deaths of 19 civilians. This was just one of several accusations that the French military had killed civilians.
From 2014 to 2020, the security situation in the Sahel only deteriorated. The jihadist insurgency intensified and spread from Mali into Niger and Burkina Faso, despite the thousands of French troops present and the €1 billion spent on the operation per year. A French troop surge to 5,100 in January 2020 failed to yield results. Meanwhile, public opinion in Mali had turned solidly against France. Years of intervention seemed to have only made the region more violent, and less stable.
Mali’s relationship with France would be further shaken by a series of military coups. In August 2020, President Keita was deposed by the military, taking advantage of the population’s exhaustion with the growing violence. Keita’s civilian successor, Bah N’Daw, was also arrested and deposed by the military just nine months later, in May 2021. France responded by withholding aid and temporarily ceasing military cooperation, but this was restored by July. By December, the junta was reportedly deploying mercenaries from the Russian-backed Wagner Group for the purposes of fighting jihadists. In January 2022, Mali expelled the French ambassador after he made disparaging comments about the junta. In February, Mali ordered French troops to leave the country, citing the unsatisfactory results of Barkhane. France, upset with Mali’s new ties to Russia and refusal to work with them, fully withdrew its troops from Mali in August 2022, and relocated them to Niger.
In November of 2022, President Macron declared Operation Barkhane officially over. Macron stated that a new military strategy would be formulated, one that would lighten France’s responsibility while still supporting African nations. 3,000 troops were to remain in the Sahel. Operation Barkhane, after eight years of violent confusion, had ended in failure, though France signaled its intention to stay in the region.
2023: France’s Coup de Grâce
Mali was but the first Sahelian country from which the French military would leave after the end of Operation Barkhane. In December 2022, just a month later, the French military withdrew 130 troops from the Central African Republic in response to the CAR’s use of Wagner Group mercenaries to fight jihadists.
Burkina Faso, much like Mali, would face two military coups in less than nine months. Both coups, the first in January 2022, and the second in September 2022, were undertaken with the justification that a new military government would solve Burkina Faso’s security crisis. French-Burkinabe relations quickly deteriorated. In January 2023, Burkina Faso canceled a 2018 accord giving France the right to fight jihadists on its soil, and in February, the French pulled 400 troops from the country, amid widespread demonstrations against their presence. The perception among Burkinabes was that the French had not done enough to curb the insurgency. In January of 2024, 100 soldiers of the Africa Corps (a restructure of the Wagner Group after the death of the organization’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin), were announced to have arrived in Burkina Faso for the purpose of enhancing state security, with plans for reinforcement in the near future.
Head of the Burkinabe armed forces hands back the French flag during a flag-lowering ceremony in Feb. 2023.
In July 2023, Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum was similarly deposed in a military coup. As in Mali and Burkina Faso, military officials cited the civilian government’s poor response to the security crisis as a justification for overthrowing it. Soon after, the junta was ordering French soldiers to leave the country. There were over 1,500 French troops in Niger at the time, most of whom had arrived after being evicted from Mali the previous year. French troops began leaving in October, and by December of 2023, they had quit the country entirely.
In August 2023, the longtime pro-French Gabonese president Ali Bongo Ondimba was overthrown in a military coup. In a particularly revealing moment, France condemned the coup but did not intervene on Bongo’s behalf. The days of an interventionist French military policy were over. 2023 would also see the collapse of the G5S. Mali had already withdrawn in May of 2022, and Niger and Burkina Faso jointly announced their withdrawal from the alliance in December of 2023. Chad and Mauritania, the only remaining members at this time, have signaled their intention to dissolve the alliance.
As of the end of 2023, France maintains a military presence in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Gabon, Djibouti, and Chad, but the futures of these forces are in question. Macron has reportedly decided on “significant” downsizing for military bases in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Gabon, though exact numbers are unknown at this time.
What’s Next for the Sahel?
It is doubtful that France will resume counter-terrorism or peacebuilding efforts in the Sahel anytime soon, if ever again. Much like 1994, 2023 was a watershed moment for France’s military policy. France’s military presence in Africa has rapidly shriveled, with more cuts on the way. Morale has plummeted, and the French public would be unlikely to support another intervention in Africa after the cost and unpopularity of Operation Barkhane.
The power vacuum left by France is swiftly being filled by Russia, via the Wagner Group (now restructured as the Africa Corps). Over 1,000 Wagner soldiers are now stationed in Mali, where they have a proven track record of unscrupulousness. A joint force of Malian troops and Wagner mercenaries were responsible for the massacre of over three hundred civilians in the central Malian town of Moura during an operation to root out jihadists. The Malian army has reportedly become more violent since partnering up with Wagner, with the distinction between civilians and combatants “completely disappearing”.
A banner of Putin at a pro-junta rally in Burkina Faso in Jan 2023 demanding the withdrawal of French troops.
The Sahel has only gotten more violent over time, and it is a trend we can expect to continue. At present, the main actors driving the jihadist insurgency are JNIM and the Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel). Since 2013, tens of thousands of Sahelians have died, and over 2.5 million have been displaced by the conflict. 2023 was one of the bloodiest years in the conflict’s history, with deaths from political violence in the Sahel increasing 38% over 2022, and civilian deaths increasing by 18%. The juntas in charge of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have demonstrated that they will respond to escalation by jihadists by escalation of their own, with no end in sight except unconditional victory.
A graph depicting the increasing trend of political violence in the G5S states (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) from 2013 to 2023.
Burkina Faso and Mali have seen the most dramatic increases in violence over the past year, and it is likely to worsen as counterinsurgency efforts intensify. Sahelian armies, wracked by coups and a decade of war, are unable to conclusively defeat the jihadists without outside support. With France now absent, and the UN mission in Mali having withdrawn in 2023, the only international support in the Sahel comes from the Wagner Group, which is evidently uninterested in a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and indeed profits off its continuation.
There exists two routes for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in the Sahel, neither of which seem realistic at present. The first involves negotiation at the local level. Both the Malian government and JNIM had expressed a willingness to negotiate as of 2021, but neither had taken any steps to facilitate dialogue. At the time, France was opposed to negotiations, and JNIM wanted foreign forces to withdraw before it was willing to talk. France’s departure may open up new opportunities for negotiation, but the intervention of the Wagner Group is sure to complicate matters. If both sides see violence as the only response to violence, as they currently do, they will be driven away from the bargaining table.
A second route would be international intervention, by parties that desire a peaceful resolution to the conflict. As it stands, this is unlikely. The UN and France have both quit the region, and have no interest in returning. Sahelians are unlikely to welcome such an intervention given the failure of outside forces to contain the conflict. In no uncertain terms, the future of the Sahel is bleak. Violence is worsening, with very few viable options left for a peaceful resolution. And while the French have departed the region with little more than a bruised national ego, it is Sahelians who must live and die with the consequences of their failure.
