Macron negotiates greater commitment by France’s allies in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel

Before his summit last week with the G5 Sahel leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to be carefully cultivating the impression that he would significantly reduce the size of Operation Barkhane, France’s military force which has been fighting jihadists in the Sahel since 2014.

And so most people – including even the Sahelian leaders themselves, it seemed – were surprised when he announced instead at the summit that he would maintain France’s military strength at its current level of 5,100 combat troops, at least until the northern summer.

“We must not release pressure on terrorist groups,” he said during the summit which was held with the leaders of the G5 Sahel countries – Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania – in the Chadian capital of N’djamena. Macron and some officials of other European countries as well as representatives of international organisations attended online. 

By signalling a probable troop reduction – back to the level before a surge of 600 troops in January 2020 – Macron had evidently been trying to motivate France’s allies in the counter-terrorist Sahel fight, to increase their own troop contributions.

If so, his tactics worked. 

At the summit, Chad’s President Idriss Deby announced he would contribute another battalion to the G5 Sahel joint force while European countries that had originally only been providing technical support to the force reinforced their combat contingents. The Takuba, a joint special forces unit, now comprises soldiers from Estonia, Sweden, Czech Republic and Italy, with possibly more to come, France’s ambassador to South Africa, Aurélien Lechevallier, told Daily Maverick. 

In addition, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal are increasing their training and logistic support to the Sahel counter-terrorism effort. 

Reinforcements certainly seem necessary; last year the Sahel conflict claimed about 6,200 lives, a 30% jump over 2019, according to The Economist. 

Lechevallier said the speculation that Macron would reduce France’s presence had mostly derived from the growing French public pressure he is under to get out of the Sahel. 

The Sahel has become France’s Afghanistan or Iraq, with public criticism of the operation every time French troops suffer casualties, Lechevallier noted. 

Macron used the speculation of a likely withdrawal to his advantage, to motivate France’s allies to reinforce their presence. 

Macron is “a very good negotiator,” Lechevallier said. So, probably before the N’djamena summit, Macron had decided: “Let’s maybe push the other partners to do more, and then we’ll announce that we stay.”

The ambassador also noted that the summit had assessed that despite great difficulty, the counter-terrorism effort was “moving forward in the right direction”.

And so, “It would have sent a contradictory message to withdraw at a point where we are making progress.

“And also we’ve seen more commitment by Sahel countries and also international partners, like the European partners in particular. 

“So it would be strange to say to our European colleagues, ‘Please step up to the plate, reinforce your presence, but at the same time we will withdraw’.” 

Macron has so far steadfastly refused to negotiate with the jihadists, though local leaders, like Mali’s interim Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and Burkina Faso’s Prime Minister Christophe Dabiré, are pushing in that direction. 

Many independent analysts worry that the G5 Sahel countries are still very far from being self-sufficient militarily and will therefore remain dependent on France and other external supporters indefinitely.