“We are going to put ourselves in working order to achieve” French military withdrawal from Mali “within this time” four to six months fixed by Emmanuel Macron, assured the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, Friday February 18 on franceinfo. That “transaction”she added, “will start these days”.
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For her, this titanic logistical challenge, in a degraded security context, can be met in time by the French forces. “The President of the Republic, as early as June of last year, asked us to reconfigure our system in Mali, so we have already closed three bases that we had in northern Mali”she explained. “This operation is complete, it went exactly according to schedule,” she pointed out. “There, we are continuing, and we are accelerating, in a way, which was an approach that was already announced by the President of the Republic”.
“We will therefore continue by successively disengaging the three other bases on which we are today, that is to say Gossi, Ménaka and Gao.”
Florence Parly, Minister for the Armed Forcesat franceinfo
Florence Parly also returned to the reasons that led to the French military withdrawal from this country. “The conditions were no longer met to be able to continue a fight that we started in 2013 at the request of Mali”she said. “For several months, the Malian junta had made commitments, on the one hand to continue the fight against terrorism and on the other hand to ensure the transition to civilian authorities, so that Mali could resume the course of its democratic life” , she recalled.
“On this second point, the commitments are not kept, that is to say that elections should have been held in February of this year and the elections are not being held”she pointed. “Furthermore, we were hampered, we experienced difficulties in being able to continue our fight on the ground”she regretted.