Vincent Hugeux, journalist, teacher at Sciences Po, author of “Tyrans of Africa”, published by Perrin, estimated Monday January 24 on franceinfo that France had “lost the hand” in the Sahel while a French soldier was killed in Mali on Saturday during a mortar attack against the Gao military camp. This is the 53rd French soldier killed in combat in the Sahel since 2013. France is “in a reactive and not proactive procedure”. According to him, she is facing a “dilemma”. To leave, “it’s offering a magnificent victory to jihadist propaganda”, to stay, “it has a cost”human and financial.
franceinfo: Is there another track than jihadist?
Vincent Hugeux: No. This is very clearly a known modus operandi. There was also the next day, on another military base, a Minusma camp, the United Nations mission in Mali, a mortar shell attack. So there is nothing unusual or unusual about all this. It is very likely, given what we know about the areas of evolution of the various jihadist matrices in the Sahel, that this attack is attributable to what is called the Support Group for Islam and Muslims affiliated with the Al-Qaeda nebula.
Is this the first time that we have attacked a French military base in Mali?
No. There were attacks of different types. We know about improvised explosive devices when convoys pass. Attacks with heavy weapons, mortar type, are nothing new. This proves the capacity for harm and the degree of organization of the jihadist combat cells. And then, the fact that we are attacking Gao is obviously highly significant. It is a huge base which is also attached to a camp of the UN mission Minusma. And moreover, it is supposed to be the nerve center, tomorrow, of the new system as it must be reorganized with as a priority what is called the three-border zone, on the borders of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso with the support for what is called Operation Takuba, so an alliance of European special forces. It is quite striking to see that the last two mortar attacks in the past 48 hours have targeted Ménaka, which is the current focal point of this famous force in Takuba and Gao, which should be tomorrow, in a political context that we know to be extremely turbulent.
This attack falls badly a few months before the presidential election?
This is called a dilemma in classical tragedy, that is to say an alternative in which none of the terms is satisfactory. Stay or go? To leave is to offer a magnificent victory to jihadist propaganda. ‘We have rolled back French, colonial power, etc.’ And then staying, it has a cost. The ideal scenario was a gradual disengagement from the famous Operation Barkhane with a reduction in manpower. There has been the closure of three bases, the northernmost in Mali, in the past months. There, France has lost control, that is to say that we are in a reactive and not proactive procedure. You are also stuck between two adversities. The military operational adversity which is known and whose vigor we have still seen in the past two days. Then, political adversity. Relations with Bamako are terrible. So there comes a time when the cost of maintaining a device of this nature, both in human terms, in financial terms, in symbolic terms, can be considered prohibitive.
“And then, obviously, electoral periods are conducive to demagogy and we still see there that a lot of political leaders, including candidates for the supreme office, navigate between demagogy and ignorance of the realities on the ground. “
Vincent Hugeux, journalist, teacher at Sciences Poat franceinfo
Those who support the thesis that we can organize a stupid and brutal departure, like that, in 48 hours, know nothing about the dismantling of an operation of such magnitude and such duration. And then, let’s not forget the overwhelming symbolic charge that what would appear to be a surrender to the jihadist scourge that threatens not only Mali, but also Burkina Faso, which, a neighboring country, is also weakened with mutinies which tend to show that there is a form of contagion of the acute coup that is winning, especially West Africa.