Mali’s deepening security crisis: the fallout of France’s departure

Across the vast, red-dusted expanses of the Sahel, on those remote tracks where conflict unfolds largely unseen by European eyes, Mali is now confronting a harsh truth: severing ties with those who formed the primary defense against encroaching instability carries significant repercussions.

The recent wave of devastating attacks sweeping the nation is neither an unforeseen tragedy nor a twist of fate. Instead, it represents the anticipated outcome of a deliberate political shift, heralded as an assertion of national sovereignty. This sovereignty, prominently showcased and fueled by a fervent anti-French narrative, had become a key tool for internal legitimacy.

Bamako sought the departure of French forces, and Bamako achieved it.

The final French convoys departed from strategic locations like Gao, Tessalit, and Ménaka, often met with derision from segments of the public, inflamed by years of accusatory rhetoric. At that moment, the practical operational realities seemed secondary. Little consideration was given to the fact that in 2013, when jihadist columns threatened to advance southward, it was French forces that decisively halted the imminent collapse of the Malian state.

President Emmanuel Macron had remarked with stark clarity that Mali’s decision to expel the French military was not its most prudent choice. This straightforward observation, almost clinical in its delivery, now resonates as an undeniable strategic reality.

While the French President has never denied previous French missteps—acknowledging that Paris sometimes overemphasized military solutions without adequately fostering essential local political reforms—he has remained consistent on one critical point: without French intervention, Mali could have descended into chaos. He had previously asserted that without France, Mali would no longer exist as a unified state.

This fundamental truth appears to be reasserting itself with brutal force today.

The reality on the ground, however, is impervious to political slogans or posturing. Once French bases were vacated, a stark security vacuum emerged. Groups affiliated with Al-Qaida and the Islamic State swiftly moved to exploit these newly exposed vulnerabilities. Where Operation Barkhane once contained, monitored, engaged, and gathered intelligence, Malian authorities now struggle to maintain lasting control over their own territory.

Behind these unfolding events lies a memory that demands respectful acknowledgment.

Fifty-eight French soldiers perished in the Sahel.

Fifty-eight individuals lost their lives in a conflict that was neither abstract nor theoretical. They fell in Kidal, within the Adrar des Ifoghas, in In Delimane, on roads riddled with improvised explosive devices, during nighttime operations, under oppressive temperatures, and against a elusive, mobile adversary.

These soldiers were not occupiers. They were not colonial predators disguised within a militant narrative. They served as instruments of a military commitment undertaken by the French Republic to prevent the establishment of a terrorist sanctuary at the heart of the Sahel region.

They paid the ultimate price.

Their sacrifice necessitates, at the very least, that their memory not be diminished by ideological oversimplifications.

Undoubtedly, France made errors. Yet, for many years, it also bore the brunt of a massive military effort, almost single-handedly, to preserve an already precarious regional balance.

Mali chose to dismantle this security framework in the name of a declared independence. It is now confronting the ramifications of that decision.

President Macron, in stating that Bamako had not made the most advantageous decision, was not expressing post-colonial resentment or sentimental regret. He was simply observing a reality that is now being confirmed with unforgiving severity: in certain parts of the world, a proclaimed sovereignty alone is insufficient to halt advancing jihadist columns.

For France, the Sahel became a theater of diplomatic attrition.

But for its soldiers, it remains something more profound: a field of honor.

And that honor is not subject to the shifting winds of public opinion.