Across the vast, red-dusted expanses of the Sahel, where conflicts unfold far from European eyes, Mali confronts a harsh reality: dismissing those who maintained the front line against encroaching instability carries profound repercussions.
The recent surge in attacks devastating the nation is neither accidental nor a matter of fate. Instead, these incidents are the anticipated outcome of a political severance, proudly presented as an assertion of national sovereignty. This proclaimed sovereignty, amplified by an anti-French narrative, served as a tool for internal legitimation.
Bamako sought the French departure, and Bamako achieved it.
French military convoys completed their withdrawal from strategic locations such as Gao, Tessalit, and Ménaka, often met with derision from segments of the public, inflamed by years of accusatory rhetoric. At that moment, operational realities seemed secondary. The critical fact that French forces in 2013 had decisively halted the imminent collapse of the Malian state when jihadist columns advanced southward was largely overlooked.
President Emmanuel Macron observed with stark clarity: “Mali made a regrettable decision by expelling the French army.” This simple, almost clinical assessment resonates today as a strategic truism.
The French head of state has consistently acknowledged past French missteps, recognizing that Paris occasionally overemphasized military solutions without securing essential local political reforms. Yet, one point remained steadfast: without French intervention, Mali could have descended into chaos. He previously stated unequivocally: “Without France, Mali would no longer be a unified state.”
This stark truth now re-emerges with brutal force.
The ground itself, indifferent to slogans or posturing, revealed a stark security vacuum once French bases were vacated. Groups affiliated with Al-Qaïda and the Islamic State swiftly exploited these vulnerabilities. Where Operation Barkhane once contained, monitored, engaged, and gathered intelligence, Malian authorities now struggle to maintain lasting control over their territory.
Beyond this immediate sequence of events, there lies a memory that demands remembrance.
Fifty-eight French soldiers perished in the Sahel.
Fifty-eight individuals fell in a conflict that was neither abstract nor theoretical. They lost their lives in Kidal, within the Adrar des Ifoghas, in In Delimane, on roads riddled with mines, during nocturnal operations, under scorching temperatures, and against an elusive, mobile, and pervasive enemy.
These soldiers were not occupiers. They were not colonial predators disguised in militant fiction. They represented the instruments of a military commitment undertaken by the French Republic to prevent the establishment of a terrorist sanctuary at the heart of the Sahel.
They paid the ultimate price.
Their sacrifice necessitates at least one imperative: to ensure their memory is not diluted by ideological oversimplifications.
Indeed, France made errors. However, it also bore, almost single-handedly for years, an immense military burden to preserve an already fragile regional balance.
Mali opted to dismantle this security framework in the name of proclaimed independence. The nation now confronts the consequences of that choice.
When Emmanuel Macron stated that Bamako had not made “the best decision,” he was not expressing post-colonial resentment or sentimental regret. He was simply acknowledging what reality now confirms with relentless cruelty: in certain parts of the world, declared sovereignty alone is insufficient to halt advancing jihadist columns.
For France, the Sahel became a theater of diplomatic attrition.
But for the French soldiers, it remains something more profound: a field of honor.
And this honor is not subject to the shifting winds of public opinion.
