Withdrawal from Niger: France as a scapegoat | EUROtoday

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CHRONIC. If French navy interventions within the Sahel haven’t been free from criticism, it might be improper to summarize them as a neocolonial gendarmerie operation.

By Arthur Chevallier

Lhe withdrawal of the French armies from Niger introduced on Sunday September 24 by the President of the Republic will not be the image of something in any respect. Françafrique, whose finish is perpetually introduced, will not be a related reference insofar as the exterior operations carried out since Operation Sangaris haven’t been the results of a unilateral resolution. In different phrases: if we had been there, it was as a result of we had been requested to be there. France had neither the vocation nor even the need to imagine a gendarmerie mission in West Africa, which might have been as inappropriate as it was not possible given the extent of the territory in query and the configuration geopolitics.

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