France’s interventions in Mali and the Sahel: A historical institutionalist perspective

ABSTRACT

France’s interventions in Mali and the wider Sahel appear to mark a new departure in French military policy in terms of the approach to multilateralism adopted, the regionalisation of the response, and the levels of violence deployed. Yet how ‘new’ is this approach, when set against the historical backdrop of French military interventions in Africa? Should it be seen as a modified version – an adaptation – of the new type of multilateral engagement that emerged in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide? Using a historical institutionalist lens, employing the notions of critical junctures, ‘layering’, and ‘drift’, this article briefly sets out the unilateral approach that marked French military policy in Africa prior to 1994 before going on to analyse the multilateral approach and associated path-dependent practices that emerged after the Rwandan genocide. Drawing on elite interviews in Europe, the US and Africa, the article shows that, while France’s engagement in the Sahel is characterised by an ostensibly novel multilateral approach, it does in fact combine new and old norms, ideas and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• France
• French military policy
• Africa
• Sahel
• security

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Ed Stoddard, Stefano Recchia and Thierry Tardy for their comments on a draft of this article. Gordon Cumming also wishes to thank the Collegium in Lyons for its support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Maja Bovcon, ‘ Françafrique and regime theory’, European Journal of International Relations 19/1 (2013), 5–26; Shaun Gregory, ‘The French military in Africa: past and present’, African Affairs 99/396 (2000), 435–48; Tony Chafer, ‘French African Policy in Historical Perspective’, in Tom Young (ed.), Readings in the international relations of Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2015), 135–46.

² Tony Chafer, ‘Chirac and ‘la Françafrique’: No Longer a Family Affair’, Modern and Contemporary France 13/1 (2005), 7–23.

³ See Bruno Charbonneau and Jonathan Sears. 'Fighting for liberal peace in Mali? The limits of military intervention' Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 8/2–3 (2014), 192–213; Susanna Wing, ‘French intervention in Mali: strategic alliances, long-term regional presence?’ Small Wars and Insurgencies 27/1 (2016), 59–80; Christopher Chivvis, The French war on Al Qa’ida in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press 2016).

⁴ Luis Simón, ‘The Spider in Europe’s Web? French Grand Strategy from Iraq to Libya’ Geopolitics 18/2 (2013) 403–434; Nathaniel Powell, ‘Battling Instability? The Recurring Logic of French Military Interventions in Africa’ African Security 10/1 (2017) 47–72.

⁵ Roland Marchal, ‘Military (mis)adventures in Mali’, African Affairs 112/448 (2013), 486–97; Isaline Bergamaschi and Mahamadou Diawara, ‘The French military Intervention in Mali: not exactly Françafrique but definitely postcolonial’, in Bruno Charbonneau and Tony Chafer (eds.), Peace operations in the Francophone world (London: Routledge 2014), 146; Grégor Mathias, and Jean-Louis Triaud, Les guerres africaines de François Hollande (La Tour-d’Aigues: Editions de l’Aube 2014), 30–33.

⁶ Marina E. Henke, ‘Why did France intervene in Mali in 2013? Examining the role of intervention entrepreneurs’, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 23/3 (2017), 307–23.

⁷ Benedikt Erforth, Contemporary French security policy in Africa (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan 2020).

⁸ Theda Skocpol and Paul Pierson, ‘Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science’, in Ira Katznelson and Helen V. Milner (eds.), Political Science: State of the Discipline (New York: W.W. Norton 2002), 710.

⁹ Sarah E. Kreps, ‘Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice’, Political Science Quarterly 123/4 (2008), 573–603.

¹⁰ See, for example, Adam Sheingate, ‘Rethinking rules: creativity and constraints in the US House of Representatives’, in James Mahoney and Kathleen A. Thelen (eds.), Explaining institutional change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010), 168–203.

¹¹ See, for example, Thomas Rixen, Lore Viola, and Michael Zürn, Historical institutionalism and international relations: explaining institutional development in world politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016), 1.

¹² Paul Pierson, Politics in time: history, institutions and social analysis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

¹³ James Mahoney, ‘Path Dependence in Historical Sociology’, Theory and Society 29/4 (2000), 510–15; Giovanni Capoccia and R. Daniel Kelemen, ‘The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism’, World Politics 59/3 (2007), 341–69; Orfeo Fioretos, International politics and institutions in time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

¹⁴ Paul Pierson, ‘The Limits of Design: Explaining Institutional Origins and Change’, Governance 13/4 (2000), 492.

¹⁵ James Mahoney and Kathleen A. Thelen, ‘A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change’, in Mahoney and Thelen (eds.), Explaining institutional change: ambiguity, agency, and power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010) 6.

¹⁶ Michael Zürn, ‘Historical Institutionalism and International Relations – Strange Bedfellows?’ in Rixen et al (eds.), Historical institutionalism and international relations, 200–1, 203. Cf. Pierson, ‘The Limits of Design’, 490–1.

¹⁷ Mahoney and Thelen, ‘A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change’, 1.

¹⁸ Ibid., 10.

¹⁹ Zürn, ‘Historical Institutionalism and International Relations’, 202.

²⁰ Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen A. Thelen, ‘Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies’, in Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen A. Thelen (eds.), Beyond continuity: institutional change in advanced political economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005), 9. Emphasis in the original.

²¹ Mahoney and Thelen, ‘A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change’, 15–18.

²² Ibid., 17.

²³ Cf. Jeroen van der Heijden, ‘Institutional Layering: A Review of the Use of the Concept’, Politics 31/1 (2011), 10.

²⁴ Streeck and Thelen, ‘Introduction: Institutional Change’, 19–30, passim. As Van der Heijden (2014, 9–10) has observed, one earlier mechanism, exhaustion, was dropped by Mahoney and Thelen, who also mention ‘displacement’ (breakdown and wholesale substitution of existing institutions) and ‘conversion’ (where institutions are subject to strategic redeployment ‘in the service of new ends’. These are less relevant here, since we are arguing that existing institutions have been redeployed within the new multilateral approach to serve old goals.

²⁵ Rixen et al, Historical institutionalism and international relations, 10.

²⁶ Streeck and Thelen, ‘Introduction: Institutional Change’, 18–19.

²⁷ The notable exception was the May 1978 French and Belgian operation to rescue European and Zairian hostages held by rebels in Kolwezi.

²⁸ Bruno Charbonneau, France and the new imperialism (Aldershot: Ashgate 2008), 68–72; Assemblée Nationale, Rapport d’information no. 2777, ‘Engagement et diplomatie: quelle doctrine pour nos interventions militaires?’ 115–21, lists 16 major interventions from 1964–1990. See also John Chipman, French power in Africa (Oxford: Blackwell 1989), 124; table 5.2 lists 16 interventions between 1959–1986.

²⁹ Victor-Manuel Vallin, ‘France as the Gendarme of Africa, 1960–2014, Political Science Quarterly 130/1 (2015), 79–101.

³⁰ Chipman, French power in Africa, 126–28; Alexander Keese, ‘First Lessons in Neo-Colonialism: the Personalisation of Relations between African Politicians and French Officials in sub-Saharan Africa, 1956–66, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 35/4 (2007), 599 passim.

³¹ The exception was the conflict between Chad and Libya, where France intervened in 1983 and 1986 to prevent a Libyan invasion that threatened, due to a feared domino effect, the French presence in central Africa, see Philippe Chapleau and Jean-Marc Marill, Dictionnaire des opérations extérieures de l’armée française: de 1963 à nos jours (Paris: Nouveau Monde Editions 2018), 252–62.

³² Niagalé Bagayoko-Penone points out that this knowledge was often ‘caricatural’, emphasising the ‘mentality’ of Africans, their backwardness and childlike qualities, Afrique: les stratégies française et américaine (Paris: L’Harmattan 2003), 323–327.

³³ Raoul Girardet, La société militaire dans la France contemporaine, 1815–1939 (Paris: Plon 1953), 298–99.

³⁴ Pascal Chaigneau, La Politique militaire de la France en Afrique (Paris: Centre des hautes études sur l’Afrique et l’Asie modernes 1984); Chipman, French power in Africa, 123, 148.

³⁵ Martin Staniland, ‘Francophone Africa: The Enduring French Connection’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 48s9/1 (1987), 56.

³⁶ Chapleau and Marill, Dictionnaire des opérations extérieures, 424–5. Examples include Senegal 1991, 1993; Zaire, 1991 and 1993; Gabon, 1992; Burundi, 1993 and Togo, 1994). The main exception was France’s involvement in UN Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, 1992.

³⁷ Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda crisis: history of a genocide (New York: Columbia University Press 1995); Survie, radio broadcast, ‘Rwanda: honte d’être français’, 5 April 2004, Accessed at: https://survie.org/themes/genocide-des-tutsis-au-rwanda/la-france-et-le-genocide-des-tutsis/article/rwanda-honte-d-etre-francais.

³⁸ François-Xavier Verschave, Noir silence: qui arrêtera la Françafrique? (Paris: Arènes 2000), 97–98; Amnesty International, Arming the Perpetrators (London: Amnesty 1995), 2,5.

³⁹ Chapleau and Marill, Dictionnaire des opérations extérieures, 270.

⁴⁰ Charbonneau, France and the new imperialism, 121–148; Luc de Heusch, ‘Rwanda: Responsibilities for a Genocide’, Anthropology Today 11/4 (1995), 3–7; Pascal Krop, Le génocide franco‐africain (Paris: J.‐C. Lattès 1994); Daniela Kroslak, The role of France in the Rwandan genocide (London: Hurst 2007); François-Xavier Verschave, Complicité de génocide? (Paris: La Découverte 1994); Agir Ici/Survie, ‘Rwanda: la France choisit le camp du génocide’, Dossiers noirs de la politique africaine de la France (Paris: L’Harmattan 1996); Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, L’inavouable: la France au Rwanda (Paris: Arènes 2004); United Nations, ‘Report of the Security Council, 16 June 1999–15 June 2000; Assemblée Nationale, ‘Rapport d’information sur les opérations militaires menées par la France, d’autres pays et l’ONU au Rwanda entre 1990 et 1994, 15 December 1998.

⁴¹ Interviews, former French military officers, Bamako, February 2019, and south-west France, April 2019.

⁴² Rachel Utley, ‘“Not to do less but to do better … ”: French military policy in Africa’, International Affairs 78/1 (2002), 135.

⁴³ Per Martin Norheim-Martinsen, ‘Our work here is done: European Union peacekeeping in Africa’, African Security Review 20/2 (2011), 19, 26; Ståle Ulriksen, Catriona Gourlay and Catriona Mace, ‘Operation Artemis: the shape of things to come?’, International Peacekeeping 11/3 (2004), 512–13.

⁴⁴ Kees Homan, ‘Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo’, in European Commission, Faster and more united?: the debate about Europe’s crisis response capacity (Luxembourg: EUR-OP 2006), 153.

⁴⁵ Saint Malo II agreement, cited in Tony Chafer and Gordon Cumming. ‘Beyond Fashoda? Anglo-French Security Cooperation since Saint Malo’, International Affairs 86/5 (2010), 1132.

⁴⁶ Kenneth Omeje, ‘The Political Economy of Peacebuilding in Africa’, in Kudrat Virk and Tony Karbo The Palgrave handbook of peacebuilding in Africa (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) 292.

⁴⁷ For a more detailed discussion of French policy towards Côte d’Ivoire between 2002 and 2004, see Stefano Recchia, ‘A legitimate sphere of influence: Understanding France’s turn to multilateralism in Africa’, Journal of Strategic Studies in this special issue.

⁴⁸ Hylke Dijkstra, ‘The Military Operation of the EU in Chad and the Central African Republic: Good Policy, Bad Politics’, International Peacekeeping 17/3 (2010), 395–407; interview, German military official, Bamako, January 2019.

⁴⁹ Alice Pannier and Olivier Schmitt, ‘Institutionalised cooperation and policy convergence in European defence: lessons from the relations between France, Germany and the UK’, European Security 23/3 (2014), 274.

⁵⁰ Michael Shurkin, France’s war in Mali: lessons for an expeditionary army (Santa Monica: Rand Arroyo Center 2014), 16.

⁵¹ ‘Opération militaire au Mali: la France n’interviendra pas «elle-même»‘. Accessed at: http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20121113-operation-militaire-mali-france-interviendra-pas-elle-meme-union-africaine-addis-abeba-conseil-securite.

⁵² Thierry Tardy, ‘France: the unlikely return to UN peacekeeping’, International Peacekeeping 23/5 (2016) 611–12.

⁵³ Charbonneau and Sears, ‘Fighting for Liberal Peace in Mali?’ 197.

⁵⁴ Lori-Ann Benoni, ‘The Long Path to MINUSMA: Assessing the International Response to the Crisis in Mali’, in Thierry Tardy and Marco Wyss (eds.), Peacekeeping in Africa: the evolving security architecture (London: Routledge 2015), 171–89. This same point about ECOWAS’s marginalisation was made in interviews by the former chief of staff of the ECOWAS Standby Force, Abuja, February 2019 and by an ECOWAS diplomat, Bamako, July 2019.

⁵⁵ Vincent Jauvert and Sarah Halifa-Legrand, ‘Mali: Histoire secrète d’une guerre surprise’, Nouvel Observateur (7 February 2013).

⁵⁶ Elisa Lopez Lucia, The European Union integrated and regionalised approach towards the Sahel (Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal/Centre FrancoPaix en résolution des conflits et missions de paix 2019), 15–18.

⁵⁷ Interviews, EU official, Bamako, January 2019; serving French military officer, Bamako, February 2019; retired French general, Bamako, February 2019; British military officer, Dakar, March 2019.

⁵⁸ Interviews, serving French military officer, Bamako, February 2019; MINUSMA official, Bamako, July 2019.

⁵⁹ Rémi Carayol, ‘Sahel, les militaires évincent le Quai d’Orsay’, Le Monde diplomatique (July 2019) 13; interview, ECOWAS official, Bamako, May 2018.

⁶⁰ Kacper Rekawek, ‘Who Is to Teach “These Guys” to “Shoot Less”?’, Journal of Terrorism Research 5/1 (2014), 78.

⁶¹ African Union Peace and Security Council, Strategic Concept of the Joint Force of the G5 Sahel (CONOPS), Addis Ababa, 13 April 2017, paragraph III.

⁶² Interviews, Manuel Rapnouil, European Council on Foreign Relations, Paris, September 2018; former MINUSMA commander, Brussels, January 2019; UN official, New York, February 2019; MINUSMA official, Bamako, July 2019.

⁶³ Interview, US official, New York, January 2019.

⁶⁴ Interviews, UN officials, New York, March 2019.

⁶⁵ Marielle Debos, ‘Que fait l’armée française au Tchad?’, Libération (8 February 2019); International Crisis Group. ‘Rebel Incursion Exposes Chad’s Weaknesses’ (13 February 2019).

⁶⁶ Sibylle Scheipers and Hew Strachan, The changing character of war (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011).

⁶⁷ Daniel Bourmaud argues that the Gaullist tradition of grandeur continues to underpin French foreign policy, including Africa policy, meaning that there has been resistance to the evolution towards multilateralism within France’s governing elites, ‘From unilateralism to multilateralism, the decline of French power in Africa’, in Tony Chafer and Gordon Cumming, From rivalry to partnership (Farnham: Ashgate 2011), 41–54.

⁶⁸ Interviews Africa Peace Fund official, Brussels, January 2019; UK military officer, Dakar, March 2019; French military officer, Stuttgart, May 2019.

⁶⁹ Claude Franc, ‘Le Maréchal Foch en 1918 Commandement interallié et art opératif’, Cahier de la pensée mili-Terre, 50, 2018. On the military as a force for multilateralism in military interventions, see also Stefano Recchia, ‘Soldiers, Civilians, and Multilateral Military Intervention’, Security Studies 24/2 (2015), 251–83.

⁷⁰ Interview, retired French military officer, south-west France, April 2019.

⁷¹ Created in 1957, its mission was the economic and social development of the French Sahara; it ceased to exist in 1963, Kelsey Suggitt, Impossible endings? Reimagining the end of the French empire in the Sahara, 1951–1962 (University of Portsmouth PhD thesis 2018).

⁷² This point was made in various interviews: with French diplomat, Paris, September 2018; US State department official, London, March 2019; retired French military officer, south-west France, April 2019; French military officer, Stuttgart, May 2019.

⁷³ Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘Le discours de Dakar de Nicolas Sarkozy’, Le Monde (9 November 2007); Adekeye Adebajo and Kaye Whiteman, The EU and Africa: from Eurafrique to Afro-Europa (London: Hurst & Co 2012), 339–40.

⁷⁴ Benedikt Erforth, Thinking Security: A reflectivist approach to France’s security policy-making in sub-Saharan Africa (University of Trento PhD thesis 2015) 127–28; interview with French official, Africa Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, March 2019.

⁷⁵ Interviews, French and EU officials, Bamako, January 2019.

⁷⁶ International Crisis Group. The Central Sahel: a perfect sandstorm, 25 June 2015, 10.

⁷⁷ For example, see data at https://www.acleddata.com/, ‘Regional Overview’, Africa (9 July 2019).

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Leverhulme Trust (Grant no. RPG-2017-095), which funded the research on which this article is based.

Notes on contributors

Tony Chafer

Tony Chafer is Professor of African and French Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He is a historian specialising on francophone Africa and French relations with Africa in the late colonial and post-colonial periods. His monograph La fin de l’empire colonial français en Afrique de l’Ouest : Entre utopie et désillusion was published in 2019. His recent articles include 'France in Mali: towards a new Africa strategy?' in the International Journal of Francophone Studies (2016) and ‘French African policy in historical perspective’, in T. Young (ed.), Readings in the International Relations of Africa (2016).

Gordon D. Cumming

Gordon D. Cumming is Professor of Language-Based Area Studies at Cardiff University. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and alumnus of the Collegium, he has served as Professeur Invité at Sciences-Po Bordeaux and Lyons. An ex-diplomat, his British Academy and Leverhulme-funded research focuses on French and EU security and development policies. His books include: Aid to Africa (2001), French NGOs in the Global Era (2009), and La France. L’Europe et l’Aide (2013).

Roel van der Velde

Roel van der Velde works at Cardiff University as a researcher. He achieved his PhD on French arms trade to South Africa in the early Cold War at University of Portsmouth in 2017 and holds a MsEcon in International Politics from Aberystwyth University.