It is an understatement to say that relations between Mali and France are execrable. Two putsch in less than a year in Bamako, a military power which does not want to return the keys to civilians, and which the Quai d’Orsay describes as “illegitimate”. The expulsion of an ambassador on January 31, the announcement of the withdrawal of Operation Barkhane perceived as a betrayal after nine years of presence, anti-French demonstrations. The deployment of Russian mercenaries from Wagner, the Kremlin’s unofficial army. All the episodes of this crisis in recent months had already brought the two countries to the brink of rupture. The censorship of RFI and France 24 is the icing on the cake, a decision “serious“for the head of the French state who sees it”the sign of a race forward towards the worst“.
Mali is, along with the Central African Republic, one of the bridgeheads of Russian influence in Africa. Admittedly, at the United Nations General Assembly on March 2, Bamako did not oppose the resolution condemning the war in Ukraine. The Malian representatives abstained. But when Westerners, once again united against Moscow, multiplied the sanctions against the Russian regime, the junta did not cut its ties with the Kremlin, on the contrary.
About ten days after the outbreak of war, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force went to Moscow to discuss the equipment delivered to the Malian army (essentially weapons and helicopters) to help fight the jihadists; it was also a question of discussing additional supplies. Not quite enough to promote reconciliation between Paris and Bamako, which has ostensibly chosen a new ally. It was, moreover, a report on the alleged abuses of the Malian army and the famous Russian instructors that angered the junta and led to the suspension of RFI and France 24.
However, not all Europeans are moving away from Mali: Spain and Italy, for example, are seeking to maintain their partnerships with Bamako, in particular to try to control the migratory flows that come from or pass through Mali. Germany, which has soldiers engaged in the region via Minusca, the United Nations force in the Central African Republic, does not want to tear up all its contracts either.
But with France, beyond military cooperation, all sectors are affected. Paris recalled its cooperators present in the various Malian ministries. Cultural ties could also suffer from this divorce (the African Photography Biennial, the continent’s largest photo exhibition, scheduled for October, is uncertain).
On March 4, around forty mayors and elected representatives of French local authorities even signed an appeal in the weekly Young Africa so that the dialogue is not broken with Mali. All are calling for the maintenance of their local partnerships in health or education so that the Malian population, on the front line, is not the victim of a “double jeopardy”.