THE T T HM E E FH RE E NC AT N ’H S DE N BU RE Uranium. Campaign checks. Oil. What’s really going on in Mali Story by JORGE TAMAMES / ART by BEN BERKE
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logical and consistent with modern times, the other rational and rooted in history— pervade the official discourse about the intervention. For one, the story of Operation Serval reads like the newest page in the tiresome history of the War on Terror—or “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the Orwellian rebranding of the term. President Hollande’s vow to “destroy terrorists” and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s description of Mali’s insurgence as an “existential threat” to “our way of life” are telling tributes to the enduring legacy of post-9/11 neurosis. The operation is linked to NATO’s recent intervention in Libya, as Mali’s instability is in great measure an offshoot of the latter’s: the influx of former Muammar Qaddafi loyalists and mercenaries from Tripoli to Azawad, following the dictator’s murder in late 2011, lit the fuse of the ongoing conflict. In addition, Operation Ser-
val follows a pattern of increasing foreign policy activism on the part of the French government. Its unilateral recognition of the Syrian National Council as the country’s sole representative last November raises the question of whether Operation Serval will mobilize support for a similar initiative in Syria, or contribute to the consolidation of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine in international relations. On the other hand, there is much that the War on Terror clichés and R2P rhetoric conceal, starting with the viability of the operation itself and the greater stakes for France. Operation Serval’s stated goal is to stop the Islamists’ advance, reverse it, and cripple them in the process. The French and Malian militaries have successfully retaken the town of Konna—the insurgency’s former springboard to southern Mali—followed by Gao and Timbuktu in central Azawad, and finally Kidal and Tessalit near the Algerian border. But ousting the reb-
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t first glance, it seems as though the stars aligned to make Operation Serval a textbook case _of legitimate humanitarian intervention. The Hollande government complied with all legal niceties required to intervene: it received a clear UN mandate and waited for Mali’s official request for help. It also garnered support from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Chad, which have committed 3,300 and 1,800 forces, respectively, to the intervention. The rhetoric Hollande employs when addressing his African counterparts attempts to bolster support for France’s activism throughout the continent. In a recent speech in Dakar, Senegal, the president stressed the need for a “sincere” relationship between France and Africa and an end to their conflictive interaction. His tone was in stark contrast to that of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 speech, also in Dakar, in which the former French president used the opportunity to muse upon the ills of the “the African man”—specifically, on his “failure to enter history” while “living in a world of fancy.” Needless to say, the speech was not well received. More importantly, this particular intervention is an easy one to sell. The Islamist insurgency in Mali, composed by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and the terrorist organization Ansar Dine has galvanized French public opinion. The rebels’ tactics of systematic amputation of limbs and stoning of adulterers, coupled with the imposition of strict Shariah law throughout Azawad, are all too reminiscent of outrageous conditions in
Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan. Even concern for Timbuktu, with its historical landmarks and Tatooinesque architecture, is a motivation for backing the intervention: the Malian town’s possible destruction recalls the 2001 dynamiting of Afghanistan’s Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban, which drew international condemnation. Accounts of Malians cheering French troops, waving French flags, and even naming their children “Hollande” add further legitimacy to Operation Serval. After all, it has saved the southern part of the country from an Islamist takeover. Moreover, domestic politics have provided an equally strong, if not stronger, impetus for the French government to intervene. 75 percent of people questioned in France in January supported the intervention in Mali, buying into its legitimacy. Launching Operation Serval offered Hollande an opportunity to boost his approval ratings, which have plummeted for several reasons since he was elected to office in May 2012. He made the decision to send troops to Mali not simply because it was good politics, but because that added benefit clearly made the choice ever more appealing. One factor contributing to Hollande’s decline in popularity is his internal management of France’s economy. Recent wavering on fiscal policy has inspired Hollande’s pejorative nickname “Flanby,” after a trademark French caramel custard that is soft and wobbly. During the 2012 elections, he ran on a pro-growth platform representing the Parti Socialiste (France’s Socialist Party), promising to reverse austerity policies that had been implemented in France following the German-led trend of belt tightening in the eurozone. Instead, after his victory Hollande ended up kowtowing to Berlin and drafting the toughest budget in the last three decades of French economic history. Yet his government’s adoption of rigueur—the French version of austerity with a human face, based more on increasing fiscal pressure than on slashing welfare spending—has failed to revitalize France’s stagnant economy. To make matters worse, Hollande’s flagship economic proposal, a 75 percent income tax applied to earnings above €1,000,000, was shot down in December 2012 by the French Constitutional Court. What is more, the ongoing euro crisis has, at France’s expense, consolidated Berlin’s dominance as leader of the eurozone. As Brussels sees it, today’s Franco–German
axis functions to hide Germany’s strength as much as it does to hide France’s weakness, a fact made painfully clear to Hollande during the latest negotiation of the EU’s 2014–2020 budget. When his country’s interests were outmaneuvered by Germany and Britain, Hollande was forced to settle for a less than wholly satisfactory deal that hurt his domestic popularity. Add a botched January attempt by French special forces to rescue a hostage in Somalia, reminiscent of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s Desert One debacle in Iran, and it is evident why Hollande’s position was untenable. The opportunity to intervene in Mali thus seemed too good to pass up. Operation Serval is backed by the French citizenry, and it allows the French government to pitch itself as a relevant global actor and draws attention away from the troubled domestic and European political economy. It has even generated an increase in Hollande’s approval ratings, as Monsieur Flanby revealed his solid resolve in deploying hard power in his foreign policy. On the whole, it appears as if moral and pragmatic considerations justified the intervention.
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espite such a rosy presentation of the intervention, Malians should remain skeptical of its desirability. France’s familiar neocolonial reliance upon its former African territorial possessions for strategic resources, Mali included, has led Paris to numerous feats of realpolitik in the past, including support for the corrupt likes of Mobutu Sese Seko, former president of Zaire, and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, former president of Tunisia. France’s notorious history of military interventionism in Africa has rarely captured the attention of international mainstream media, yet this background context is critical to understanding the logic behind Operation Serval. The connection between French and African elites—from those in Tunisia to those in Madagascar—is a complex one, a relationship associated with opaque backroom dealings at the Élysée Palace involving only the executive branch of government. One leading critic of French policies in Africa likened the liaison to an iceberg: its visible tip displays France’s well-wishing rhetoric, but its hidden body contains the exploitative collusion of elites pursuing narrow interests at the expense of the African public. The coziness of this liaison— termed
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rance is at war. At the time of writing, 4,000 French soldiers are deployed in Azawad, the northern half of Mali, fighting a combination of Islamist and separatist insurgents who took over the region in mid-2012. Codenamed Operation Serval, the intervention is the largest launched by a Western power in a Muslim-majority country since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Although France’s official rhetoric stresses the importance of assisting Mali in the fight against radical Islam and protecting French expatriates, France’s history of neocolonial meddling in African affairs sheds light on the current intervention’s darker motives. Operation Serval is a risky bet, yet French President François Hollande’s socialist government is willing to take its chance in order to preserve French influence abroad, safeguard strategic interests in the region and advance its domestic agenda. Two distinct narratives—one ideo-
els from Mali’s northern mountain ranges, where they are presently regrouping, will prove elusive. French forces are unprepared for a counterinsurgency campaign, and porous national borders across the Western Sahara allow the insurgency to move in and out of the country at its convenience, as the Taliban do in Afghanistan. For this reason, it is not clear whether Operation Serval will achieve much in the long term. In the short term, however, it wards off an insurgency that could spread to neighboring Niger, where nuclear giant company Areva gathers much of the uranium that fuels France’s power plants. This economic consideration is rarely invoked in the defense of France’s decision to intervene, but is essential to understanding it.
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