Macron's defeat

Emmanuel Macron lands for the first time in Africa, at the Barkhane base in Gao, Mali, on May 14, 2017. His "determination is complete": "Operation Barkhane, will only stop the day there are no more Islamist terrorists in the region and the full sovereignty of the Sahel states is restored. Not before. Seven years on, the jihadists are on the increase, and the French army has been forced to leave Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad should follow in the short to medium term. This is not a military debacle, it's a political one. With the end of its influence in Africa, France has weakened its army, lost its allies at the United Nations and its singular voice on the international stage.

In this essay, Leslie Varenne traces Emmanuel Macron's itinerary in Africa since 2017. She recounts a long sequence of lack of strategy, vision, ignorance of African realities, technocratic approaches, mistakes and setbacks. To this invento