“Operation Barkhane is not a failure”- French Armed Forces Minister says

French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Monday refuted the idea that Operation Barkhane was a failure, in response to an open letter from around a hundred senators addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Today Niger, yesterday Mali, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso rejected France, French forces, French companies”, underline senators LR Roger Karoutchi, Bruno Retailleau and Christian Cambon in a letter signed by 94 parliamentarians and published by Le Figaro.

“At our expense, after the failure of Operation Barkhane, here are the Wagner militias, unconcerned about human rights or democracy, but perfectly available to all dictators or leaders who maintain power by uniting their populations against the former ‘colonial power'”, deplore the co-signatories.

“I can’t let it be said that Operation Barkhane was a ‘failure’. Our army has constantly pushed back terrorist groups in the Sahel, saving thousands of lives there and protecting those of the French from threats attacks on our soil”, reacted Sébastien Lecornu in a statement sent to journalists on Monday evening and then published on his Twitter account.