Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2024

The French Military Redeployment and Counterterrorism after Niger

Résumé

In an interview with the French magazine Le Point at the end of August 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that “French [counterterrorism] military operations in the Sahel were a success, as they prevented the establishment of a caliphate a few thousand kilometers from our borders.” This statement came one year after France’s withdrawal of its military forces from Mali and several weeks after the July 26 coup d’état in Niger. France subsequently withdrew its 1500 soldiers from Niger, with the French President saying in September 2023, “there is no more Françafrique.” Russia’s Wagner organization has attempted to fill the strategic void left by the French withdrawal, but its future after the death of its leader remains uncertain. While this may seem like the end for France’s military influence in the region, it is important to note that France did not withdraw completely, but redeployed and maintained its forces elsewhere in the region, notably in Chad. That means that France has not left a strategic vacuum in the Sahel, but has moved its forces to the territory of other partners where the defense treaty system remains in effect. France retains its capacity to strike across much of the region. Considering the French move from a historical perspective, it may be just a temporary redeployment, as France’s military was repeatedly asked to leave its partners in a variety of circumstances in the past. The French Government, however, often returned in force in emergencies. This paper will analyze the strategic rationale of the French redeployment in the Sahel in 2022 and 2023 and what it means for overall French counterterrorism strategy. It will also look at the difference in French strategic thinking regarding the local threat to its partners by highly-mobile “terrorist” military units affiliated with AQMI and ISIS and the transnational threat directly to French citizens and French territory. This has been at least partially overlooked in the literature on the topic. In this way, the paper provides an analysis of the latest developments in French counterterrorism strategy in the Sahel, and will argue that it is unlikely that France has definitively abandoned the region.

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Dates et versions

hal-04703827 , version 1 (20-09-2024)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04703827 , version 1

Citer

Christopher Griffin. The French Military Redeployment and Counterterrorism after Niger. International Conference on Counter-Terrorism, Technology and Development in Africa, Center for Military Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Africa University Institute, Obuda University, Budapest, Hungary; Africa Aerospace and Defence Expo, Sep 2024, Tshwane, South Africa. ⟨hal-04703827⟩
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