It's not a question of if but how: France's president is hosting African and European allies before the announcement of a withdrawal from Mali. Relations have seriously soured with the junta in Bamako ever since a second coup in as many years and the cozying up of the military to Russia and the mercenaries of the Wagner Group.
Nine years have passed since then-president François Hollande swooped in to stop the southward advance of a jihadist insurgency and free the far north. But military victory was never going magically fix the politics of one of the poorest countries of the world.
What does this pullout entail? Where to? With the whole world haunted by a messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, we ask about the logistics of packing up 2,300 troops and heavy equipment, most probably to neighbouring Niger.
The hero's welcome of 2013 can seem like a fading memory for a Mali where the under-embargo junta has stoked anti-French sentiment, this in a nation whose future is more than ever uncertain and whose ultimate fate will impact the entire region.
>> Watch our Reporters show: Shadow of Russia's Wagner Group looms large over post-coup Mali
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Juilette Laurain and Léopoldine Iribarren.
