The African Union-European Union (EU) summit that befell in Luanda, Angola, final week underscored a easy fact: The Sahel stays considered one of Europe’s most pressing safety priorities. But, whilst leaders reaffirmed their dedication to the area, there stays little consensus on what must be completed within the face of repeated coups and ongoing rebel beneficial properties there. On this context, understanding the true historical past of the Sahel’s speedy unraveling is essential to figuring out how Europe may contribute to its stabilization going ahead.
As jihadi fighters threaten Mali’s capital, Bamako, some critics have argued that France bears chief duty for the scenario within the Sahel. Paris, they declare, pursued a militarized, neocolonial coverage that ignored political questions of governance and legitimacy, thereby inadvertently fueling rebel violence.
The African Union-European Union (EU) summit that befell in Luanda, Angola, final week underscored a easy fact: The Sahel stays considered one of Europe’s most pressing safety priorities. But, whilst leaders reaffirmed their dedication to the area, there stays little consensus on what must be completed within the face of repeated coups and ongoing rebel beneficial properties there. On this context, understanding the true historical past of the Sahel’s speedy unraveling is essential to figuring out how Europe may contribute to its stabilization going ahead.
As jihadi fighters threaten Mali’s capital, Bamako, some critics have argued that France bears chief duty for the scenario within the Sahel. Paris, they declare, pursued a militarized, neocolonial coverage that ignored political questions of governance and legitimacy, thereby inadvertently fueling rebel violence.
France’s insurance policies shouldn’t be immune from criticism. However the actuality is that French policymakers have been very a lot attuned to those questions. Certainly, this was why Paris repeatedly referred to as on its European and world companions for help, within the hopes {that a} bigger, better-resourced mission may pursue a extra complete technique. Nonetheless, when help didn’t arrive quickly sufficient, France was pressured to behave alone and deploy the assets it may to deal with probably the most pressing safety wants.
Merely pointing the finger at France is not any substitute for actual coverage. Sturdy options will come solely from African management supported by constant, coordinated engagement from European and different companions.
France’s navy engagement within the Sahel didn’t stem from a bid for affect however responded to direct requests from the area’s governments. In January 2013, Mali formally requested Paris for help in opposition to advancing jihadist forces. The end result was Operation Serval, which quickly recaptured the Malian cities of Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal and prevented a collapse of the Malian state. Over the next decade, France misplaced greater than 50 troopers in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—a heavy worth for a mission undertaken largely to safe main cities and restore territorial management.
Regardless of frequent claims that it targeted narrowly on counterterrorism, France acknowledged early on that stabilization required greater than navy motion. In July 2017, along with Germany and the EU, it launched the Sahel Alliance, a platform to coordinate governance, growth, and service-delivery efforts. On the similar time, France persistently pushed for shared duty: It urged European companions, america, and others to contribute assets and championed regional possession by the G5 Sahel Joint Drive. Removed from appearing alone, France tried to anchor the Sahel response in a broader coalition that linked navy instruments with political and growth methods. Whereas doing so, it additionally sought deeper engagement from the Sahelian governments themselves.
France delivered actual tactical successes in Mali even because the state’s deeper political foundations remained fragile. The follow-on mission to Operation Serval, Operation Barkhane (2014-22), held the road for almost a decade in a number of the world’s hardest terrain, but it surely progressively misplaced political traction. Nonetheless, to assert, as some critics have, that France’s efforts helped allow the jihadists’ return inverts trigger and impact. The state’s collapse got here after Mali’s coups, the expulsion of French troops and United Nations peacekeepers altogether, and a shift in direction of new, much less accountable companions.
When France withdrew its final troopers from Mali in late 2022, it left behind an uneasy stalemate—not peace, however not complete collapse both. Since then, violence has worsened. A 2024 snapshot of the area from Armed Battle Location and Occasion Information exhibits Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger experiencing among the many highest charges of terrorism-related casualties worldwide. That surge started beneath the juntas that denounced Paris, not through the interval of French involvement. If France’s presence was the issue, the area must be safer by now. It isn’t.
Paris’s intervention by no means aimed to rebuild Bamako from the bottom up. It was a counterterrorism mission making an attempt to purchase time for native politics to get better. What adopted—corruption, stalled decentralization, and an alienated northern inhabitants—is much less the failure of France than of the Malian state.
It’s trendy to denounce French “neocolonialism,” however this obscures the evolution of coverage. Over time, France shifted from unilateral operations to joint command buildings with G5 Sahel companions and expanded EU coaching missions. What’s extra, had France been intent on neocolonial management, it will not have accepted—at appreciable navy and political value—native governments whose decisions typically undermined French operational pursuits.
The actual query is now not what France ought to have completed otherwise, however what Europe is ready to do now. For years, most Europeans tended to think about the Sahel France’s nearly unique duty. That phantasm has evaporated. The Sahel at this time is a crucible of state failure; rebel innovation; and geopolitical competitors involving Russia, Turkey, and Gulf actors, all working with fewer constraints than Western companions ever tolerated. If Europe desires stability on its southern flank, it can not outsource technique.
If the Sahel is slipping away, it is usually as a result of Europe by no means actually acted with sufficient willpower and coordination within the area. For almost a decade, France shouldered the majority of the navy, monetary, and reputational burden for stabilizing a area whose collapse would inevitably have an effect on the entire of Europe. True, different companions contributed, specifically beneath the umbrella of the EU Frequent Safety and Defence Coverage missions, such because the EU coaching and capability constructing missions in Mali (EUTM Mali and EUCAP Sahel Mali). However though they contributed coaching missions, civilian advisors, and intermittent finances help, it was not often at a scale or period that matched the problem. When circumstances worsened, Paris turned the handy scapegoat.
What we should draw from this expertise isn’t a morality story about French overreach, however a lesson about collective underinvestment. The Sahel uncovered structural weaknesses on the core of European international and safety coverage: fragmented decision-making, uneven threat sharing, and the absence of a shared imaginative and prescient. With out remedying these issues, even probably the most dedicated member state will exhaust itself.
At present, a reputable European strategy ought to start with restoring civilian safety because the central organizing precept of any help bundle. Proof throughout a number of conflicts exhibits that abuses by state forces drive extremist group recruitment extra successfully than any ideological enchantment. Europe should situation its cooperation—diplomatic, monetary, navy—on clear requirements for good conduct and penalties for non-compliance. This isn’t an ethical luxurious however a strategic necessity.
Second, Europe should spend money on governance the place it nonetheless exists. Even small pockets of useful administration—from border posts to municipal providers—can anchor stability. The reflex to pour assets into high-profile missions whereas underfunding native governance has repeatedly failed. A more practical mannequin would focus help in comparatively secure zones, serving to them change into islands of useful statehood able to resisting extremist penetration.
Third, cross-border cooperation should cease being a slogan and change into an operational actuality. The Accra Initiative, linking coastal states with their Sahelian neighbors, gives one of many few viable platforms for joint planning, intelligence sharing, and border management. It deserves predictable European financing greater than fragmented project-based help.
Fourth, Europe must rethink its safety devices. Regardless of years of rhetoric, the continent has no deployable, built-in power in a position to stabilize crises at pace. The ad-hoc Takuba Activity Drive in Mali hinted at what may very well be attainable—modular, multinational models with shared logistics and interoperable command. Europe ought to draw classes from Takuba to develop a standing EU rapid-response capability that may be activated with out months of political wrangling. On this regard, the EU’s new Fast Deployment Capability—with 5,000 troops in a position to deploy quickly wherever a disaster emerges—is a step in the fitting route.
Lastly, Europe should communicate with a robust coordinated political voice. Though all EU member states have individually condemned the coups within the Sahel, a unified European place linking political transition, human rights requirements, and entry to growth financing would wield way more affect.
If Europe actually believes instability within the Sahel threatens its personal safety—by migration pressures, trafficking networks, and extremist spillover—then it should construct a collective structure able to appearing early, decisively, and coherently. Predictable funding for African-led peace operations and sustained governance packages could be a begin.
France’s expertise within the Sahel shouldn’t be handled as a cautionary story in opposition to engagement. It must be the blueprint for a easy lesson: No European nation ought to ever be left to hold such a burden alone.
