(Paris) President Emmanuel Macron opened the door on Wednesday to a transformation of the French military offer in Africa, towards a more discreet device, and announced a reassessment of the budget of the Armies for 2024-2030 in the light of the return of the war in Europe.
Posted at 4:14 p.m.
In his traditional speech to the Ministry of the Armed Forces on the eve of July 14, the Head of State judged that the adoption of “less posed and less exposed devices” in Africa was a matter of “strategic necessity”, while the he French army is about to leave Mali at the end of the summer and that it has thousands of soldiers involved in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel.
Mr. Macron affirmed his desire to “succeed in building a stronger intimacy with the African armies over the long term, to rebuild a capacity to train, here and there”, while remaining in the second line, and while Paris wants to prepare its armies to high-intensity conflicts like the one in Ukraine.
France, a former colonial power in part of the countries of the continent, maintains a strong military presence there. In addition to its commitment in the Sahel, which is being restructured, it has elements deployed in Senegal, Gabon and Djibouti.
President Macron also spoke of the need for a “continuum between our diplomatic offer, our renewed actions for the African partnership, our development actions” in Africa. “It’s a profound paradigm shift,” he said.
Yesterday a key partner of Bamako, France, a former colonial power, is now persona non grata and is preparing to leave Mali within a few weeks. The junta in power since 2020 pushed out the French army and appealed to the Russians, via the sulphurous paramilitary company Wagner, even if Bamako denies it.
Once disengaged from Mali, France will have halved its presence in the Sahel by maintaining only around 2,500 soldiers in the region. But Paris has been saying for months that it is not giving up on the fight against terrorism and is talking with the countries of the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea to prepare new forms of intervention.
In Niger, the French will maintain more than a thousand troops and air capabilities to provide fire support and intelligence as part of a “combat partnership” with the Niger Armed Forces (FAN), deployed with 250 troops. French near the border with Mali against jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group.
The Ministers of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu and of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna are expected on July 15 in Niger. Mr. Lecornu will travel the next day to Côte d’Ivoire.
New military budget
The Head of State also announced a reassessment of budgetary needs in terms of defense, via a new Military Programming Law (LPM) 2024-2030 more suited “to the prospect of the possible return of a high-intensity confrontation”. . This development work “should be completed at the end of this year” then “discussed with Parliament” at the start of 2023, wished the French head of state.
In 2017, the president had begun a sharp rise in defense credits after years of scarcity. The budget for the armies will grow further in 2022 before crossing a march of three billion in 2023, to reach 44 billion euros.
Finally, he asked the armies to “do more” to develop the Universal National Service (SNU) aimed at young people, in order to mobilize “the whole of French society” in the challenges offered to them.
“It is not a question of militarizing youth, even less society, but at a time when the nation needs to rediscover the salt of its history, its deep meaning […]the Republic needs you to do more,” he said.
The SNU, Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise, was launched in 2019. After an initial experiment with 2,000 young volunteers aged 15 to 17, then a session canceled in 2020 due to the health crisis, 15,000 young people participated last summer to cohesion courses throughout France.
This year, the Universal National Service (UNS) aims to reach a total of 50,000 young people. But this project is far from unanimous among the high school unions and in the armies, already very employed on multiple fronts.