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 end 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, jihadists are on the rise, and the French army has been forced to leave Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad may follow… This debacle is not a military one, 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 bid farewell to its singular voice on the international stage. Leslie Varenne retraces 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 that have led to this defeat. To this inventory must be added the problem posed by Emmanuel Macron’s personality and his relations with his peers.