Sahel leaders have failed to appreciate France for helping to fight terrorism in the region, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday at an annual conference on foreign policy for 2025.
He told French ambassadors gathered at the Elysee Palace that Sahelian leaders were ungrateful.
He justifies France’s 2013 intervention to fight Islamist militants “even if those same states had now moved away from French military support”, saying “we had a relationship based on security. It was in fact two-fold.”
He said “on one hand, it was our engagement against terrorism since 2013.
“I think someone forgot to say ‘thank you.’ It’s okay; it will come with time.
“Ungratefulness, I know all too well.”
Former French colonies in Africa Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso Chad, Senegal, and Ivory Coast had severed ties with France and gone ahead to ask France to withdraw their soldiers from their countries.
“None of them would have a sovereign state if the French army had not deployed in this region,” Macron added, and dismissed the notion that his country had been kicked out of the Sahel region.
He said France no longer belonged there after citizens decided that they no longer wanted to prioritise combating terrorism.
“France no longer belongs there because we are not at the beck and call of coup leaders,” he added.
Macron said France is focused on “reorganising” itself.
