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In mid-January of this year France invaded. Mali, a former French colony that sits in the middle of what ivas once the enormous French empire in Africa that stretchedfrom Algeria to the Congo andfrom the Ivory Coast to the Sudan. The French government argued that its invasion of its former colony was an anti-terrorist and humanitarian intervention to prevent radical Salafist Muslimsfrom taking the capital of Bamako and succeeding in taking control of the country. Critics have suggested that France had other motivations, above all maintaining its powerful influence in the region in order to prevent European competitors, the United States, or the Chinesefrom muscling in, but also because of its specific interests in resources such as uranium. The situation is very complex, in part because of a historic division and even antagonism between the Tuaregs, a Berber people in the North of Mali, and the black African population in the South, but also because, in addition to the various Islamist groups, there are also numerous organizations of traffickers in drugs and other contraband. In this article, Jean Batou unravels the complexity of the situation to lay bare the central social struggles taking place. -EDITORS
Looking back on events, it's important to point out the real ins-and-outs of the French military intervention in Mali, launched officially on January 11 on the pretext of preventing a column of Salafist pick-up trucks from swooping down on the city of Mopti and the nearby Sévaré airport (640 km north of Bamako), and thus supposedly opening the way to Bamako, the capital and the country's largest city. The emotions caused by the atrocities of various Islamist groups of North Mali gave this unilateral operation the allure of a humanitarian crusade supported by a large part of Malian, African, and international public opinion. Certainly the legal basis of support was weak given the illegitimacy of the government in Bamako, which-as we would learn later-had never asked for ground troops from France, but there was also the fact that the Malian army had been subordinated to the French, as well as the reluctance of the troops of the Economic Community of East African States (ECOWAS) to lend a hand. What then were the motives of this new French intervention in...