"Today Niger, yesterday Mali, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso have rejected the France, the French forces, the French companies," said LR senators Roger Karoutchi, Bruno Retailleau and Christian Cambon in their letter signed by 94 parliamentarians and published by Le Figaro.
"At our expense, after the failure of Operation Barkhane, here are the militias (of the Russian group) Wagner, little eyebrow of human rights or democracy, but perfectly available to all dictators or leaders maintaining power by uniting their populations against the former +colonial power +", deplore MM Karoutchi, Retailleau and Cambon, respectively first vice-president of the Senate in charge of International Relations, President of the Republicans in the Senate group and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations and Defense Committee, and their co-signatories.
They call for a review of France policy in Africa, without making any proposals.
"I cannot let it be said that Operation Barkhane was a +failure+," Lecornu said in a statement sent to journalists on Monday evening.
"Our army has not ceased to push back terrorist groups in the Sahel, saving thousands of lives there and protecting those of the French from the threat of attacks on our soil," he said.
Barkhane was not a failure: it is a mistake to say that," insists Sébastien Lecornu, while stressing that there are "of course lessons to be learned, as for all crises and for all military operations".
Operation Serval, launched in January 2013 against jihadist groups that had conquered northern Mali and threatened to descend further south, was succeeded in August 2014 by Barkhane, targeting jihadists scattered in the countries of the Sahel-Saharan strip.
President Emmanuel Macron officially announced the end of the operation last November.
© 2023 AFP