Libyan newspaper examines France's retreat from Africa
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - France's retreat from Africa, which was its preserve by virtue as a former colonial power, is no longer evident, as illustrated by Burkina Faso's recent request for the departure of French soldiers from its territory.
It joined the cohort of African countries that have formalised their divorce from Paris.
The Libyan newspaper Alsabaah acknowledged that this phenomenon is perplexing, even though France's decline is to the advantage of Russia, the reasons that justified the French military presence still remain, namely the existence of armed jihadist groups in the region.
The newspaper said that France had strongly bet on a military solution in Libya as a way to resolve the power struggle in accordance with the policy developed by former French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian during the term of President Francois Hollande (2012-2017).
This was in coordination with the United Arab Emirates, ensuring that he carried this bet by occupying the portfolio of Foreign Minister (2017-2022) during the first five-year term of the current French President Emmanuel Macron.
Alsabaah, a newspaper published in Tripoli, said that France was working in the same direction as the Russian Federation, at the beginning of the war launched by Marshal Khalifa Haftar's forces to control the western region and the capital, Tripoli, in 2019, betting on resolving the struggle for power and influence in Libya through a military solution.
The coordination between France and Russia for the purpose of the war in Libya was clear in allowing Marshal Haftar to control absolute power in the country, the newspaper recalled.
It added, however, that Russia was working, at the same time, to dismantle the French military presence in the African Sahel region - the wind of which started to blow from Mali and then the Central African Republic, and last week it was Burkina Faso's turn to call for the departure of French forces.
Alsabaah said that French intelligence services have been operating freely since 2011 in eastern, central and southern Libya and have been monitoring, without any doubt, the expansion of the Russian military presence through the Russian Wagner mercenaries.
Therefore, urgent questions arise in France itself about the role of the godfather of French military policy in Libya, Le Drian, who - according to these interrogations - either did not realise that the world was changing and that Africa was changing with it.
The Wagner group, or what is now called "shadow soldiers", is stationed today in four declared African countries, namely Libya, Mali, Central African Republic and Sudan, the newspaper recalled.
The US intelligence confirms that Wagner is present in at least 10 African countries and is active under several names, whether as mining and gold and diamond exploration companies, or as military trainers, or as companies specialising in cyber warfare.
The newspaper pointed out that Russia has repositioned itself on the African continent from bases it has established in central and southern Libya, and its naval base in Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
This is as France is forced to retreat after escalating public campaigns against its military presence in several African countries.
Moscow has, according to the Libyan newspaper, paved the way for this return to Africa where international and regional powers, including China, the United States, India and Turkey, are now vying for its resources, with a series of 50 agreements and contracts announced with African countries worth about $20 billion so far.
The newspaper concluded with a note of astonishment at this French retreat, especially since the African countries that demanded the end of the French military presence and stopped the military agreements with Paris, in order to link the military communication channels with Moscow, are prey to the rise of the extremist movement representing armed groups, including (Daech), which are the groups that the French forces came to fight.
-0- PANA BY/IS/BBA/MA 3Feb2023
