Recent protests in the Mali’s capital Bamako indicate that the French anti-terror mission, Barkhane, is losing local support. As security deteriorates in both northern and central Mali attitudes to the former colonial power are ambivalent.
According to German news agency DW News, Thomas Schiller head of the SAHEL Regional Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Bamako said that a number of militant groups are active in the Mopti region. These include “self-defence militias with their own agendas”, which prevent farmers from cultivating fields and lead to entire villages fleeing as far as 630 km northeast of Bamako.
In the Timbuktu region, bandits are reportedly setting up roadblocks and attacking travellers. Growing fear and mistrust threaten stability and development.
In addition to this, international peacekeeping missions are under fire from local political parties. Various armed Islamic militarist groups are reportedly springing up and taking security into their own hands.
So far, dialogue between the various stakeholders has not yielded positive results, and cooperation between the French Barkhane mission and Malian troops is not regarded as effective. A local political analyst Aly Tounkara says that he hears criticism of French forces, but not of France in general. One reason for this may be that since French forces provide business for hotels and restaurants in Bamako, they are propping up the tourism industry which nearly collapsed after the coup in 2012.
Schiller noted that many Malians see France as being a natural partner both in linguistic and cultural terms while at the same time often being very critical of the military operations.