The Minister of the Armed Forces takes offense at the blockbuster which stages French soldiers who came to plunder resources, while Paris accuses Moscow of stirring an antifrançais feeling in the Sahel.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
The Minister of the Armed Forces denounced, Sunday, February 12, the representation of the French soldiers in the second part of the superproduction of Marvel Black Panther, where they were portrayed as coming to plunder resources, a reaction which is part of a context information war in Africa. “I firmly condemn this false and misleading representation of our armed forces, window wrote Mr. Lecornu on Twitter . I think and pay tribute to the 58 French soldiers who died by defending Mali at his request against Islamist terrorist groups. “
I firmly condemn this false and deceptive representation of our armed forces.
I think and make Hommag… https://t.co/2xzkkjdg5u
The film Black Panther. Wakanda Forever of Ryan Coogler, released in France at the end of 2022, features French soldiers prisoners on his knees before the Queen of Wakanda, a fictitious kingdom, in hold of those of the French soldiers deployed in Mali until August 2022. A minister French must also answer for their actions before the United Nations. The entourage of Sébastien Lecornu underlines “the wrath of the minister by seeing the film”, while France regularly accuses Russia of delivering an information war by manipulating public opinion on his action in the region.
“There can be no revisionism”
The ministry admits the freedom of an “artistic work” of which France does not claim withdrawal, or censorship. On the other hand, “there can be no revisionism on France’s recent action in Mali: we intervened at the request of the country to fight against terrorist armed groups, far from the story told in the film, namely A French army that plunders its natural resources, “added
In the entourage of the Minister, it is specified that “it is [his] role to defend the results of the Serval and Barkhane operations”, deployed respectively in 2013 and in 2014 at the request of Bamako to fight against the linked jihadists in Al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization. The double coup in Mali in 2020 and 2021 sealed the end of this cooperation. The last French soldier left the country at the end of August 2022. Relations, since then, have been freezing between Paris and Bamako, which has offered, according to France, the services of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which the junta denies.
The Minister’s reaction is part of Paris’s desire to respond “to the narratives of our competitors” in Africa, we recognize the ministry. A direct allusion to the degradation of the image of France in public opinion in the Sahel, amplified in particular by Russian propaganda, in particular by the galaxy of media organs linked to the Wagner group.
The latest Strategic National Review (RNS), presented by Emmanuel Macron in November 2022, thus erected among the “strategic functions” of defense the concept of “influence” which includes the fight against false information to destabilization ends.