Do you have legitimate source for this claim?
France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources worth the billions France spended in Mali
France spended billions of euros to fight islamist groups in Mali at the demand of the government. No resources worth the billions France spended in Mali
For instance from a quick search Mali seems bound to Veolia for its water distribution network building. And I’d assume it is or will go the same for electricity, transportation etc. where anytime a big contract needs to be passed with an external technology provider, excluding French companies from the call won’t be an option.
PS: to add, French companies entering these kind of deals will usually be predatory and make sure the gov. is under enough pressure that they can’t just move to another provider. Development will only happen within a tight control of the situation by external debtors.
That's not how things played out in real life, in fact the exact opposite is true. There is now a very strong anti-French sentiment in Mali (in part exacerbated by Russia), and France lost a huge part of the influence they had in the whole region.
It looks to me like France/Mali gov relations took a turn after the 2020 coup ? All in all I can totally imagine Malian population having an anti-French sentiment, while their government is in bed with French entities.
In any case it’s a quite complicated topic, but it’s not one government being in bed with French entities. You have multiple groups fighting for territory and resources in the region for their own interest, France went there to support the government fight against Islamist groups by demand of Mali. And you now have a lot of Wagner mercenaries too (see https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagne... for example. Trigger warning: be ready to read some horrifying details if you look at recent events…).
You can read about the Operation Barkhane article on Wikipedia it has lot of context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane (I would recommend the French article if you read French).
And about Operation Serval if you want to understand what happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval.
There was a general opposition to French forces, from part of the population since the beginning which is to be expected. If you go a bit more into the details you will see that Russia took the opportunity to start an information war in the region to push against French forces, as a soft evidence you can see that protesters started asking for a Russian intervention in 2019 (in French, sorry https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/10/au-mali-le...).
That has also been communicated by Macron as a reason to stop their operation and leave the region (he made public speeches clearly pointing to Russia without explicitly saying it’s name, you can easily find them online and official translations).
When I say "our" forces I mean any people who are holding weapons provided by us, eating food provided by us and working towards goals that are set by us. How all of that is funneled to them I have no idea.
Now that the west instated former leader of Mali was ousted France wanted to re-de-stabilize again it seems. It might or might not be worth it.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/mali-accuses-france...
I should have stated it more as an opinion rather than fact but I stand by it. It's hard to believe that the US has so much intelligence yet we're unable to predict the guys we're training are going to attempt to take over the country. It's also not hard to understand that if we're committing billions of dollars to a war effort there isn't someone or a group of someone who have a hugely vested interest in either keeping the status quo for existing streams of income or removing some impediment in a potential stream of income. Those streams mostly don't go to the governments themselves, rather they go to companies headed by well connected individuals who somehow are able to drive policy and decisions either directly or indirectly.
On the flip side of this, you might have competing interests from other nations as well so it may not be as clear cut. It's no longer border expansion, annexation and "this country" vs "that country". Instead now we have nameless rebels or terrorists (depending on who's side their on) who then sign deals and feed money and resources to their "sponsor countries", or get loans for construction, or some other financial games that are far more opaque.
I have no more specific information, this is all broad strokes based on what I've seen and read. Maybe I'm wrong.
France was one of the less oppressive colonizers in Africa, but still left a significant trail of blood and suffering behind so while with Mali there was an agreement because western-created (yes, you read correctly) "islamic" militias are worse for Malian than French colonial legacy, though when Russia step-in it was and perhaps still is considered better: they do not really have means to colonize, they can just make agreements less unfair perhaps than western countries.
And that's happen almost everywhere, China is far less welcomed because various populations already experience China BRI policies and so the news they are not much friendly than the west is already spread. You do not need more resources than just history. The worst western colonizer were, from the more bloody and oppressive:
- Dutch & Belgian & British
- Germans & Italians & Spaniards
- Frenches & Portuguese
Chinese are "new" outside China, so are Russians and Russians are still seen a bit as Soviet witch to gain influences was far lighter than anyone else outside their borders.
Belgians in Africa are unsurpassed, though :-(
I rank Spain crimes a bit lower because South America colonization is far in the past, in an era where certain crimes was not considered much crimes from the point of view of most populations, otherwise they would be at the top position, perhaps counting also they religious crimes against also their own citizens.
Anyway any power have a blood trail, that's just a rank for the most "recent" ones...
But, no, Vietnamese people can not get French citizenship on special conditions and never could. But they was killed & tortured on the grounds of owning too thick and too long stick, and French soldiers sent postcards with such photos to home! It was not 18 or 19 century, as in Americas, but 1910-1920!
On the other hand, British not only build roads and railroads in India (Myanmar railroads built by British colonial administration are still in use, including some gorgeous and highest mountain bridges), but cut weavers' hands in India, too.
Ok, I can not rate them all. It is just bad.
The west gives enough humanitarian aid to feed the continent a few times over. It's hard for some to understand but adequate amounts of money or assistance isn't the problem here.
The west?
The continent?
"isn't the problem here"?
Citations needed. Definitions needed. Tell us what you perceive is the problem here?
Like building school buildings, but not including anything needed to _run_ the school for more then a very short time, or at all.
Giving away stuff without helping to build a production chain is usually just “we’re helping” signaling.
PS: except for very punctual, extraordinary events. Like helping rebuild schools after an earthquake.
Keeping this in mind you'll understand why African's do not like us except when they live in EU, so when they see the difference and hypocrisy of our oppressive élite governance.