France Reviews Mali Military Presence After Top Envoy Expelled

France says it will decide with EU partners on a future military presence in Mali by mid-February, admitting there would have to be changes after the ruling junta expelled its envoy.

French ambassador Joel Meyer was told on Monday to leave Mali within 72 hours in what has become latest tensions between the West African country, and its former colonial ruler.

The Bamako authorities said they were ordering Meyer out after what they said were hostile comments by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who has described the new Malian regime as illegitimate.

Even after recent drawdowns, France has some 4,000 troops deployed across the Sahel region, half of them in Mali, in the Barkhane operation to fight Islamist jihadists.

Paris wants now to increasingly rely on a European force known as Takuba to take the pressure off its military.

Rebel officers led a coup in August 2020 that toppled Mali’s elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was facing angry protests at failures to stem the jihadists.

The following May, the junta pushed out a civilian-led government appointed to oversee a transition period and named strongman Colonel Assimi Goita as interim president.

Tensions had already been rising after President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at the junta’s failure to stick to a timetable for a return to civilian rule.

But the expulsion of Paris’ envoy appears to have been triggered by recent comments from Le Drian, including to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday.