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Lessons not learned: Ten years of French military intervention in the Sahel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2025

Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos
Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos*
Affiliation:
Institut de recherche pour le développement, CEPED (Centre Population Développement), UMR 196, Paris, France
*
Corresponding author: Pérouse de Montclos; Email: perouse@ird.fr
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Abstract

The end of Operation Barkhane in the Sahel in 2022 raises many questions about French foreign policy in Africa. Yet the government has stifled public debate by insisting on the urgency of other wars in the world. As for the Members of Parliament, they never demanded an inquiry into the setbacks of France’s biggest overseas military operation since the Algerian war. Clearly, lessons were not learned. This article reviews the arguments and the political, military, historical and cultural reasons that led the Elysée to conceal, or even deny, a failure that also resulted in a loss of influence in its Francophone ‘preserve’ and among European Union partners who had overestimated the former colonial power’s ability to solve crises south of the Sahara. Blaming others, conspiracy theories and complaints about a lack of resources or the restrictions of international mandates to fight a global war on terror’ were part of the rhetorical weapons used to counter criticism, while some claimed that the end of Operation Barkhane was only a political defeat but not a military one.

Keywords

Sahelmilitary interventionFrancejihadterrorism

Information

Type
Briefing Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 2025 , pp. 51 - 62
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1. France Info, 19 May 2017, Macron au Mali: ‘L’opération Barkhane ne s’arrêtera que le jour où il n’y aura plus de terroristes islamistes dans la région’. Access: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/emploi/metiers/armee-et-securite/video-macron-au-mali-l-operation-barkhane-ne-s-arretera-que-le-jour-ou-il-n-y-aura-plus-de-terroristes-islamistes-dans-la-region_2198642.html

2. Varenne, Leslie (2024), Emmanuel au Sahel: itinéraire d’une défaite, Chevilly-Larue, Max Milo, 256 p.; Smith, Stephen & Jean de LaGuérivière (2024), Requiem pour ‘la Coloniale’. Afrique: conquête et retraite de l’armée française, Paris, Grasset, 160 p.; Granvaud, Raphaël (2024), De l’huile sur le feu: La France et la guerre contre le terrorisme en Afrique, Montréal, Lux, p. 77.

3. See, for example, the report by an Open Society think-tank: Brown, Will (2024), Aligned In The Sand: How Europeans Can Help Stabilise The Sahel, Brussels, European Council on Foreign Relations, 31 p.

4. Mnookin, Robert (2010), Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight, New York, Simon & Schuster, 336 p.; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2020), “Faut-il négocier avec les djihadistes au Sahel ?”, Politique étrangère, no. 1, pp. 175–87; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2023), “Sahel: comment négocier avec les djihadistes ?”, Politique étrangère, no. 3, pp. 113–23.

5. Merchet, Jean-Dominique (Feb. 12, 2021), “Mali: les ‘colonnes’ djihadistes fonçant sur Bamako en 2013, une légende!”, L’Opinion; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2013), “Le Mali dans l’œil du cyclone: une lecture internationale”, in Gonin, Patrick, Kotlok, Nathalie & Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (ed.), La tragédie malienne, Paris, Vendémiaire, pp. 7–31 ; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (June 2022), “La France au Sahel: les raisons d’une défaite”, Etudes, no. 4294, pp. 19–27.

6. Merchet, Jean-Dominique (Jan. 13, 2021), “Mali: les racines coloniales d’une impasse stratégique”, L’Opinion; Bensimon, Cyril (May 9, 2019), “La France face à la multiplication des incendies au Sahel”, Le Monde.

7. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (Oct. 2021), Les groupes djihadistes au Sahel: Une communication globale à l’épreuve des réalités locales, Paris, IRSEM (Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire), Étude, no. 87, 74 p.

8. Hoffman, Bruce (2006), Inside Terrorism, New York, Columbia University Press, 494 p.; Perry, Nicholas (2004), “The Numerous Federal Legal Definitions of Terrorism: The Problem of Too Many Grails”, Journal of Legislation, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 249–74; Easson, Joseph & Alex Schmid (2011), “250-plus academic, governmental, and intergovernmental definitions of terrorism,” in Schmid, Alex (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research, Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 98–144.

9. Jonge Oudraat (de), Chantal & Marret, Jean-Luc (2010), “The uses and abuses of terrorist designation lists”, in Crenshaw, Martha (ed.), The consequences of counterterrorism, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 94–129.

10. Phillips, Brian (2015), “What is a Terrorist Group? Conceptual Issues and Empirical Implications”, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 225–42; Jarvis, Lee & Tim Legrand (2018), ‘The Proscription or Listing of Terrorist Organisations: Understanding, Assessment, and International Comparisons’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 199–215.

11. Chamayou, Grégoire (2013), Théorie du drone, Paris, La Fabrique, p. 95.

12. Revkin, Mara Redlich (2018), “When Terrorists Govern: Protecting Civilians in Conflicts with State-Building Armed Groups”, Harvard National Security Journal, vol. 9, pp. 100–45; Honig, Or & Yahel, Ido (2019), “Fifth Wave of Terrorism? The Emergence of Terrorist Semi-States”, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 1210–28; Lia, Brynjar (2015), ‘Understanding Jihadi Proto-States’, Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 31–41.

13. Hegghammer, Thomas (2014), “Jihadi-Salafis or Revolutionaries?”, in Meijer, Roel (ed.), Global Salafism: Islam’s new religious movement, London, Hurst, pp. 245–66.

14. Maher, Shiraz (2016), Salafi-jihadism: the history of an idea, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 292 p.; Peters, Rudolph (1977), Islam and colonialism: the doctrine of jihad in modern history, The Hague, Mouton, 245 p.

15. Historically, for example, the jihad of the Sultan of Darfur during World War One, Ali Dinar, was a reaction to the colonisation of Chad by the French and Sudan by the British. In December 1914, London’s deposition of the Egyptian khedive was decisive in this respect. It convinced Ali Dinar that his turn was soon to come and that an invasion was imminent in one of the last territories not yet conquered by Europeans in Africa. For their part, the British firmly believed that the Sultan, who was finally killed in November 1916, had responded to calls for holy war by Germany and the Ottoman Empire, from which he in fact never received any support. See Slight, John (2010), “British Perceptions and Responses to Sultan Ali Dinar of Darfur, 1915–16”, Journal of Imperial and commonwealth History, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 237–260.

16. Bouhlel, Ferdaous & Yvan Guichaoua (2021), “Norms, non-combatants’ agency and restraint in jihadi violence in northern Mali”, International Interactions, vol. 47, no. 5, p. 865.

17. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2011), “La Somalie entre islamisme national et nationalisme diasporique”, in Medeiros, Joao (ed.), Le mondial des nations, Paris, Choiseul, pp. 105–114.

18. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2020), Une guerre perdue: la France au Sahel, Paris, JC Lattès, 313 p.

19. Granvaud, Raphaël (2024), De l’huile sur le feu: La France et la guerre contre le terrorisme en Afrique, Montreal, Lux, p. 69.

20. Rioux, Rémi (2019), Reconciliations, Paris, Débats Publics, p. 151 (Translation by the author).

21. Granvaud, Raphaël (2024), De l’huile sur le feu: La France et la guerre contre le terrorisme en Afrique, Montreal, Lux, 392 p.

22. Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (June 2024“Les armées des Etats sahéliens: militaires ou bandits en uniforme ?”, Questions Internationales, no. 125–6, pp. 66–9; Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2023), “Eserciti come milizie, milizie come eserciti” (Armies as a factor of instability in the Sahel), Limes, Rivista italiana di geopolitica, no. 8, pp. 87–96.

23. On the unconstitutionality of Operation Serval under Malian law, see also the chapter by Nafet Keita in Gonin, Patrick, Kotlok, Nathalie & Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (dir.) (2013), La tragédie malienne, Paris, Vendémiaire, 2013, 343 p.

24. Interview with the author of the letter in Paris, April 2024.

25. Interview by the author with a senior officer in Paris, April 2024.

26. Thurston, Alexander (2020), Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 350 p.

27. Notin, Jean-Christophe (2021), Les guerriers sans nom, Paris, Tallandiers, 384 p.; Nouzille, Vincent (2015), Les tueurs de la République: assassinats et opérations spéciales des services secrets, Paris, Fayard, 608 p.; Davet, Gérard & Fabrice Lhomme (2016), Un Président ne devrait pas dire ça, Paris, Stock, 661 p.

28. International Humanitarian Law authorises air or ground strikes against individuals taking part in hostilities. But it does not permit the pre-emptive killing of suspected terrorists who are identified on the basis of clues and presumptions linked to their age, their gender, their behaviour and their location. See Mignot-Mahdavi, Rebecca (Apr. 2021), “Frappe de Bounti: la France conduit-elle des «frappes signatures» au Sahel?”, Revue des droits de l’homme, no. 20, pp. 1–7.

29. Downes Alexander (2021), Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 424 p.

30. RFI (7 June 2024), General Marc Conruyt, “Tous les témoignages que j’ai de nos partenaires soulignent la qualité de nos formations”, Le grand invité Afrique. Access: https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/le-grand-invité-afrique/20240607-général-marc-conruyt-tous-témoignages-partenaires-soulignent-la-qualité-formations-seminaire-etats-majors-francophones-afrique