The relationships between Bamako and Paris have continued to deteriorate in recent months, in particular since the arrival in Mali of paramilitaries of the Russian group Wagner.
Le Monde with AFP
In a context of very tense relations between France and Mali, the Minister of French Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, is summoned by Malian justice in the context of an investigation relating to “attack on goods public and other offenses, “said Bamako court on Wednesday 11 May
“The investigating judge of the second cabinet at the tribunal de grande instance of commune III of the Bamako District (Economic and Financial Pole) invites Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian to present himself to his cabinet on Monday, June 20, 2022 For business concerning him “, specifies the summons, which was authenticated to the France-Presse agency by the Malian justice.
A Malian judicial source said that this investigation followed a complaint of a platform of several associations in Malian civil society, called “Maliko” (“The cause of Mali”). “It is a story of awarding a Malian passport manufacturing market to a French company [to which] Le Drian’s son would be linked,” added this judicial source.
According to an official document consulted by AFP, the case dates from 2015, when Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was president of Mali. At that time, a French company – Oberthur Technologies – obtained for ten years the market for the manufacture of Malian biometric passports.
“The Drian was at the time Minister of Defense. Did he support the file to defend a French company or his interests? This is basically what Malian justice seeks to understand. There, we are in Surveillance stadium, “said another Malian judicial source.
For its part, the Maliko association (close to the junta currently in power in Mali), which filed a complaint and was a civil party, made a document available to AFP. “The procedures and rules instituted by Malian legislation, in particular decree n ° 2015-06040 of September 25 relating to public procurement code were cheerfully raped during the award of the above-mentioned market”, affirms the document that supports the complaint.
A diplomatic source in Bamako reported on Wednesday “to date no complaint has reached the French Embassy in Bamako”. Commenting on the file, a Malian magistrate for his part estimated that “this summons” of the French minister in the state has “no legal basis”.
Degradation of relationships between Paris and Bamako
Mali has been the theater since 2012 of djihadist group operations linked to Al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization, as well as violence of all kinds perpetrated by self-proclaimed militias of self-defense and bandits.
These violence, parts of the North in 2012, spread to the center, then in Burkina Faso and Niger Voisins. They left thousands of civil and military deaths as well as hundreds of thousands of displaced people, despite the deployment of UN, French and African forces.
The relationships between Bamako and Paris have continued to deteriorate in recent months, in particular since the arrival in Mali of paramilitaries of the Russian group Wagner. The Malian authorities – dominated by the military arrived in power by force in August 2020 – announced in early May to end the 2014 cooperation treaty with France, as well as to the 2013 and 2020 agreements fixing the legal framework for the presence soldiers of the “barkhane” operation and the group of European special forces Takuba, initiated by France.