Paris is threatening to withdraw its troops if Mali allies with a Russian group

The French authorities were concerned about the discussions between Bamako and the Russian private company Wagner, warning that a deployment of these paramilitaries in Mali could lead to the withdrawal of French troops, who have been fighting jihadist groups there for eight years. An involvement of the Wagner company in Mali would be “incompatible” with maintaining a French force, warned the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, before the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. “It is absolutely irreconcilable with our presence” and “incompatible with the action of Mali's Sahel and international partners”, he said, stressing that Wagner's paramilitaries “have distinguished themselves in the past, particularly in Syria, in the Central African Republic, many with exactions, predations, violations of all kinds (and) cannot correspond to any solution”. According to French sources familiar with the case, the ruling junta in Bamako is studying the possibility of concluding a contract with Wagner on the deployment of a thousand Russian paramilitaries in Mali, in particular to train its armed forces. The Malian authorities have admitted that discussions are ongoing, but that “nothing has been signed”.

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