France’s Sahel chief says ‘no redeployment’ to Niger from Mali

The head of France’s anti-jihadist mission in the Sahel on Friday said French forces that were being pulled out of Mali after a row with its junta would not redeploy in neighbouring Niger.

General Laurent Michon, who commands the Barkhane force in the troubled Sahel, told journalists there would be “absolutely no redeployment” from Mali to Niger.

“Barkhane’s withdrawal does not entail repositioning to Niger but withdrawing from Mali,” he told a press conference in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

France currently has 4,600 troops in Barkhane, a mission that was launched in 2014 to shore up fragile allies in the Sahel battling jihadist insurgents.

Thousands of civilians in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have been killed and more than two million have fled their homes.

Barkhane ran into problems in Mali after elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was toppled in a military coup in August 2020.

France became locked in a bitter row with the new junta over delays in restoring elected rule, mounting hurdles facing Barkhane and Mali’s fast-growing friendship with the Kremlin.

On February 17, President Emmanuel Macron announced France would withdraw its forces from the country, an operation that Paris says will take several months.

Around 2,400 of Barkhane’s forces are currently deployed in Mali.

The withdrawal “will be coordinated with Malian military headquarters, the goal being to do it as quickly as possibly but avoiding a security vacuum,” said Michon.

France also wants to be “certain” that Malian troops are in a position to take over its bases in Gao, Menaka and Gossi, he said.

Barkhane’s headquarters are in the Chadian capital of N’Djamena, but the mission has an important air base at Niamey, the capital of Niger.

France will maintain “the (Niger) air base at its current levels,” said Michon.

However, deployment levels in Niger “could be modified at the request of the Nigerien military authorities… once political approval for western support has been obtained,” he said.

Under the mission’s reconfiguration, Barkhane will be available to protect allies on the Gulf of Guinea, which have been worried about encroaching jihadist attacks from the Sahel, France says.

“Barkhane’s future will be built alongside those African countries that wish it,” said Michon.

“We will carry on the fight with countries that want our support,” he said.

“We wish to continue to reassure armed forces, MINUSMA (the UN force in Mali) and the G5,” a five-nation Sahel alliance fighting jihadists, “of providing air support or other means for their missions,” he said.