France sends message to Mali’s coup leaders by suspending military ties

June 7, But the question remains — will France support the putschist leader if he names a civilian prime minister? France has gone from making verbal threats to taking concrete action within a week. The French armed forces announced on Thursday that it would suspend joint military operations with the Malian forces over the recent coup. Mali’s poorly-equipped and low-skilled armed forces heavily relied on France’s military support to fight the raging insurgency which has affected large swathes of the country. France’s Operation Barkhane plays a crucial role on the ground in Mali, particularly for intelligence and logistics, says Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “Without joint operations, intelligence, logistics support, the Malian armed forces will face a more challenging struggle against the militant Islamist groups operating in the region,” Eizenga told TRT World. In yet another blow, the Takuba force, launched in March 2020 by European special forces to train Mali’s army, will also discontinue its activities. French President Emmanuel Macron last Sunday threatened that Paris would pull its troops out of Mali following the second coup in only nine months. Colonel Assimi Goita, the strongman behind last year’s coup, declared himself president after forcibly detaining the interim president Bah N’Daw, and his prime minister, Moctar Ouane who both were tasked to bring back the democratic rule to the county. Macron said that France could not back a country “where there is no longer democratic legitimacy or transition.” In line with Macron, the French armed forces emphasised in its statement the “requirements and red lines” that have been drawn by ECOWAS, the West African regional body and African Union for Mali’s coup leaders to abide by the political transition in Mali. Paris is clearly signalling Mali to push more forcefully to at least try and ensure a modicum of transition rather than the ongoing military rule, Andrew Lebovich, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations said. “France wants to send the message to the military leadership that for the junta, really, that there are limits to what they can do and that they all need to respect the limits stated on the timing of the transition,” Lebovich told worldnews.