By Kong Gang
Florence Parly, French Minister for the Armed Forces, announced recently that France will deploy 600 additional soldiers to the Africa’s Sahel region to combat extremists. Most of the reinforcements will be deployed in Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger tri-border area, while another part will be directly committed to the G5 Sahel Joint Force to accompany them in operations. The additional forces sent by Paris come just in time and are vital for fighting extremist forces, but the move also reflects the grim anti-terror situation in Africa at the moment.
Located between the Sahara and the central Sudanian Savanna, the Sahel region that consists of countries like Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso is ravaged by poverty, armed conflicts and natural disasters, as well as the most rampant terrorist activities in Africa. Burkina Faso has seen frequent attacks in recent years. In December 2019, a group of armed terrorists attacked a church on its border and killed 14 civilians in cold blood, and many French soldiers were injured or died during follow-up counter-threat operations.
France has a long-standing feud with international terrorist forces. Due to historical connections and other factors, a large group of Africans have come to France and now accounts for a large percentage of the country’s total population. In the meantime, the cultural diversity policy implemented by the French government hasn’t provedeffective yet. Lots of African French, especially young people, having failed to merge into the French society and thus become marginalized, which has caused tension between ethnic groups. In recent years, there have been constant atrocities in cities like Leon where Africans live in high concentration, posing a serious threat to social security in the country.
What’s worse, the ethnic and social conflicts in France have taken on a terrorist touch in recent years owing to the rampant spread of terrorist ideas. Not only is there a growing number of French people joining the IS, but there is also a large number of people living in the country that hasconnections with Africa-based terrorist organizations. The advanced network has contributed to terrorist threats against France too, whose domestic security is more closely connected with the anti-terror efforts in Africa.
Dating back to early 2013, France had launched Operation Serval to directly fight the extremists in Mali. Since then it has expanded the scope of its anti-terror combats in Africa and invested more and more troops there. Meanwhile, Paris has taken an active part in organizing local forces to put up a united and coordinated anti-terror front, and the G5 Sahel Joint Force was formed under its support to join the combat against terrorists. The French military and its African allies also launched Operation Barkhane and some other major operations in the wake of Operation Serval. The new deployment will increase the number of French troops in Africa to more than 5,000, turning the continent into the “primary battlefield” of Paris’ anti-terror efforts.
However, the anti-terror situation facing France remains stern. On the one hand, the military forces of Sahel countries are generally combat-weak as allies, so France cannot entrust them with main combat missions, but taking on all the missions on its own shoulder would be too costly, especially as France and Europe are looking at multi-faceted security challenges in recent years. At this moment, Paris has to carefully and rationally plan and allocate its limited security and defense resources in order to sustain the long-term counter-terrorist combats in Africa.
On the other hand, France’s western allies have their own considerations too. Paris and London had close military cooperation when Sarkozy was in office, including joint defense operations in Africa, but after London got down the road of Brexit in 2016, such cooperation quickly chilled. Even though French President Macron recently re-expressed the wish to maintain the defense cooperation with the UK, whether they can resume the past affinity remains uncertain. Germany, however, isn’t nearly as concerned about Africa’s security situation as France due to historical and geographical differences.
Therefore, even if France has the understanding and compassion of Italy and Spain, it’s not easy for it to divert more of EU’s resources to Africa to serve its own purposes. Obviously, its top ally outside Europe on the anti-terror front is the US. But with its own strategic priority, US isn’t someone that Paris can count on completely even though counter terrorism is in their interests.
(The author is from China’s PLA National University of Defense Technology.)
