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Abstract
This article examines the current coalition campaign against Boko Haram in Nigeria in the context of French military cooperation with the Francophone countries involved. The French government is actively supporting and facilitating the offensive against Boko Haram through both structural and operational military cooperation with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. The current effectiveness and operational state of the armies in those three countries is largely due to long-term French strategic thinking about its influence on the continent. Finally, France is also militarily active on the continent with 3000 soldiers deployed for Operation Barkhane. Barkhane, while primarily aimed at containing the threat of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is also designed, in cooperation with partner countries, to prevent a link-up between Boko Haram and the other terrorist groups in the Sahel.
Notes
1. French Presidency, ‘Conclusions’.
2. French Presidency, ‘Conférence de presse’.
3. Lagneau, ‘Boko Haram.’
4. French Foreign Ministry, ‘Déclarations de Laurent Fabius’.
5. French Defense Ministry, ‘Lancement de l’opération Barkhane’.
6. Earlier, in May 2014, several Nigerian soldiers attempted to murder their commanding officer during operations against Boko Haram. (BBC News, 16 September 2014).
7. Pérouse de Montclos, ‘Boko Haram’, 5–6.
8. French Presidency, ‘Conférence de presse’.
9. Caux and Moreno, ‘More than 7,000 flee’.
10. Amnesty International, Des Galons aux épaules.
11. French Foreign Ministry, ‘Cameroun’.
12. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 143.
13. For many years the treaties were secret, especially regarding the clauses for intervention in internal crises. The Sarkozy government decided to publish them openly after 2008. French Defense Ministry, Défense et Sécurité Nationale, 154–5.For the text of some of the current military cooperation treaties see:Chad: ‘Accord de coopération militaire technique entre le Gouvernement de la République française et le Gouvernement de la République de Tchad, signé à N’Djaména les 6 mars et 19 juin 1976’. Accessed 11 February 2016. www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/dossiers-pays/tchad. Niger: ‘Accord de coopération technique entre la République française et la République du Niger’. 19 February 1977. Accessed 11 February 2016. www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/dossiers-pays/niger. Mali: ‘Exclusif – l’accord de défense franco-malien [Texte Intégral]’. (Malijet, 19 July 2014). Cameroon: ‘France-Cameroun : voici les accords de défense’. (Cameroon Voice, 21 August 2014).
14. The debate over the military bases in Africa was a particularly fierce one, pitting the Defense Ministry against what was at that point the Cooperation Ministry (absorbed into the Foreign Ministry in 1999). See Foccart, Tous les Soirs, 174–5.
15. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 16.
16. Ibid., 39.
17. Ibid., 53–4.
18. Ibid., 34.
19. French National Assembly, ‘Compte-rendu’, 3.
20. The depots are in Dakar, Libreville, Djibouti, and Douala.
21. DCSD, ‘Les Ecoles Nationales’, 1.
22. CICDE, Renforcement des capacités africaines, 20.
23. Ibid., 11.
24. Ibid., 25.
25. Bah et al., African Peace and Security Architecture, 50–55.
26. CICDE, Renforcement des capacités africaines, 19.
27. Gonnet, ‘De RECAMP à AMANI Africa’, 24.
28. Porte, ‘L’assistance militaire’, 5.
29. French Defense Ministry, ‘BSS’.
30. Magrin, ‘Les ressorts de l’intervention tchadienne’, 3.
31. French Senate, Rapport d’information, 105.
32. Gros et al., ‘Serval’, 23.
33. Ibid., 23.
34. French National Assembly, ‘Compte-rendu’, 7.
35. Ibid., 7–8.
36. Ibid., 8.
37. In 2014, Chad had difficulty providing the UN with a reliable organizational chart for the regular army. Ibid., 8.
38. French National Assembly, ‘Compte-rendu’, 8.
39. Ibid., 5.
40. ‘Accord de coopération militaire technique entre le Gouvernement de la République française et le Gouvernement de la République de Tchad’.
41. French National Assembly, ‘Compte-rendu’, 3.
42. Ibid., 8–10.
43. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 21.
44. Ibid., 149.
45. Ibid., 23. Chad took part especially in the hard-fought battle at the AQIM stronghold in the Amétataï Valley.
46. Shurkin, France’s War in Mali, 25.
47. Gros et al., ‘Serval’, 18.
48. Barrera, Opération Serval, 183, 198.
49. Ibid., 242.
50. International Crisis Group, Niger, 3, 17, 22–3.
51. Ibid., 1.
52. Ibid., 40.
53. Ibid., 21.
54. Ibid., 46.
55. DCSD, ‘La coopération dans le Sahel’,16.
56. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 142, 229.
57. International Crisis Group, Niger, 41–2.
58. French National Assembly, Rapport fait au nom de la commission des affaires étrangères, 13.
59. Ibid., 18.
60. Ibid., 13–14.
61. Ibid., 14. It is unusual for French government documents to mention cooperation with other non-African countries, with the exception of the close cooperation between France and the United States in Niger and in Djibouti.
62. Lagneau, ‘La Russie va fournir des armes au Cameroun’.
63. Pérouse de Montclos, ‘Boko Haram’, 9–10.
64. Haenlein, ‘Can Chad Tip the Balance’.
65. French National Assembly, Rapport, 18.
66. Ibid., 184.
67. European Union External Action Service, ‘Common Security and Defence Policy’.
68. D’Evry, ‘L’Opération Serval à l’épreuve de doute’, 34.
69. French National Assembly, Rapport, 178–80.
70. Shurkin, France’s War in Mali, 1–2.
71. The MUJWA is now part of Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Al-Mourabitoun group, which is allied with AQIM after a December 2015 reconciliation.
72. For a useful discussion of the different groups and the 2012 offensive, see the NATO Report: Assemblée Parlementaire de l’OTAN, Un arc de, 3–6.
73. Koepf, ‘France and the Fight Against Terrorism in the Sahel’, 9–11.
74. Ibid., 13.
75. Gros et al., 3.
76. The Guépard system has French brigades continually on alert for overseas deployments. It is a new system, which was not implemented prior to January 2013. General Barrera’s 3rd Mechanized Brigade was the first to be sent to Mali alongside Foreign Legion paratroopers and prepositioned forces in French bases. Barrera, Opération Serval, 21, 30, 62, 68.
77. Gros et al., ‘Serval’, 7–9.
78. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 112.
79. On war aims in Mali, see Gros et al., ‘Serval’, 3.
80. The most recent (2013) iteration of French COIN doctrine gives much more importance to the offensive than does American COIN doctrine. See CICDE, Contre-insurrection.
81. Barrera, Opération Serval, 31.
82. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 34–5.
83. Ibid., 10.
84. Ibid., 99–108. The Caracal helicopter, for example, did not work in the extreme heat conditions of North Mali.
85. D’Evry, ‘L’Opération Serval à l’épreuve de doute’, 30–3.
86. Barrera, Opération Serval, 378.
87. French National Assembly, Rapport, 65.
88. Ibid., 39, 49, 65.
89. French Defense Ministry, ‘Lancement de l’opération Barkhane’.
90. Ibid.
91. French Defense Ministry, ‘Barkhane’.
92. Waddington, ‘Understanding Operation Barkhane’.
93. Lagneau, ‘Selon M. Le Drian’.
94. French Defense Ministry, ‘Déclaration de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian’.
95. French National Assembly, Rapport d’information, 122–6.
96. Boko Haram officially changed its name to ‘Islamic State’s West African Province’ in 2015.