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
Can’t that be done in parallel to parent’s claims ? By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe.
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.
> By helping the gov. France secures its influence on the area and makes sure French company’s business is safe.
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.
Do you mean the second coup from 2021? That’s when France started to have clear difficulties to deal with the Malian government, the coup was in May, Macron announced the planned end of the operation in June IIRC due to issues related to the new government.
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).
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).
I only spent about 20 minutes looking this up. Western nations overthrew Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. Less than two years after they're mostly done in Libya, they roll those forces over to Mali and get Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in as acting president. NATO/UN forces had a hand in both situations. Western nations were just rolling our already funded and armed forces through the region to set things back up for proper resource and money extraction. This is all on wikipedia.
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.
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.
Gravel Institute marketing itself as a counterweight to PragerU is about the most honest thing they've done, because they lie just as much and in similar ways as PragerU likes to.
No country act on others for charity or humanitarian purposes. France was in Mali because France have a long colonial history in Africa and need African's resources. Russian Fed. try to bring back relations from the URSS era in Africa and get a better welcome because in the past they do not colonize Africa so their actions are less badly seen by local populations.
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.
I don't agree with you ranking.
Read about French behavior in colonial south-east Asia, like Vietnam.
I don't think, it is better than Britain behavior in India.
They still not have done a genocide (like British with USA native Americans, or Spain in south America many years before) also for France colonies was and some still are part of the State, so their Citizens get French nationality witch does not compensate their oppression, but let them potentially emigrate far more easily and becoming French Citizens like immigrants in USA can apply, UK have never done something similar. Also France have always colonized by the State, with troops etc, not with opium smuggling or commercial criminals (Indian's companies). That's why I put UK at the top of the most criminal in the list. They are ranked third there because Dutch and Belgian crimes was far bigger even if for a limited period of time and geographical areas, but still at the top IMO.
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...
Ok. My bad here, I don't have Americas in my day-to-day mental picture, opposite to South-East Asia and Africa. Yes, with native Americans it looks much worse for British and Spain, you are right.
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.
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 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?
So many downvotes without a response, looks like everyone seems to know some facts or has a consensus belief/faith that I don't know about or don't accept as a given fact/truth.
Agreed. I’ve seen the UN-led humanitarian system up close (albeit not in Africa). In my experience, it has many, many flaws. One of these is that it is resource constrained.
Or partner with local entities to push local production of goods and sponsor infrastructure building directly owned by the gov. and not external providers.
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.
Islamists are like talibans western creatures built to overthrown local dictatorships and governments in general when they do not behave in ways the west like, as the talibans they grow enough to a point they can revolt against those who have created them.
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.
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.