The Elysee highlighted the health crisis in France to explain the cancellation of the meeting of the Head of State with his Malian counterpart and his visit to the French troops on site, scheduled 20 and December 21.
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At the time of Paris and Bamako will only exchange in public only by the interposed accusations and invectives, the journey of Emmanuel Macron to Mali, scheduled for December 20th to 21st, was a risky bet. It was canceled on Friday 17, officially for sanitary reasons related to the Pandemic of Covid-19. The decision was formalized at the end of a health defense council for, according to the Elysée, protect the armies, while the fifth wave of contamination frightens the experts.
At four months of the presidential election – on 10 and 24 April 2022 – the executive probably did not wish that the head of state is displayed in the middle of a great table to celebrate the Traditional Christmas troops, when the French are called to limit the agapes. On December 6, Prime Minister Jean Castex, had asked his fellow citizens to “raise the foot up to the end of the year”, avoiding “big dinners”, “the starting pots” or “the racks “. Matignon specifies that the Prime Minister is also careful, “the possibility of renouncing” to his journey in Jordan, where he had to spend the New Year’s Eve with the French troops engaged as part of the operation “Chammal ” And the Elysee to justify:
“We have the need to coherence the measures requested from the French and our international agenda. It is difficult to conceive of moving a hundred people and organize a great Christmas dinner with the troops in the current context.”
A voltage level rarely reached
The displacement of Emmanuel Macron in Mali had to be articulated in two stages: a first, very political and possibly electric, in Bamako, where he had to meet the President of the transition, Colonel Assimi Goïta; And a second, more agreed, in Gao with the soldiers in external operation.
If on the military level, Emmanuel Macron can be satisfied with starting “the deep transformation” of the operation “Barkhane” with the discount to the Malian army of the basics of Kidal, Tessalit and finally Timbuktu before The end of the year, relations with the authorities of the country have reached, in recent months, a level of tension rarely reached.
For nearly nine years and the beginning of the armed intervention of France, the river relations between Paris and Bamako has never been quiet. The former head of state, François Hollande, had moments of agreement perfect with former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK), but Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, to the Defense and the Diplomacy, can not say so much. The first presidential journey of Mr. Macron in May 2017, in Gao already, had given rise to a comprehensive aparté with IBK, an upset of having to move out of the capital to welcome a young homologist refusing to hear him say that peace. Mali could depend on “the will of God”.
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