Franch President Emmanuel Macron yesterday said that the implementation of a West African force set up to fight Muslim militants was taking too much time.
The G5 Sahel force is made up of troops from Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania that is to police the region in collaboration with 4,000 French troops deployed there since intervening in 2013 to beat back an insurgency in northern Mali.
“I believe that it is not going fast enough,” Macron, who is on a three-day tour of West Africa, said alongside Burkinabe President Roch Marc Kabore. “It is indispensable that we win this war as quickly as possible.”
The G5 Sahel force, backed by France and the US, launched its campaign on Oct. 28 amid growing unrest in the desert reaches of the Sahel, where militant extremists such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State group affiliates roam undetected, often across long, porous borders.
Macron also said he would call for greater cooperation between Europe and Africa to tackle traffickers during a leaders summit in Ivory Coast later today.
He said cooperation is needed to dismantle trafficking groups and penalize them.
Macron’s trip is aimed at boosting France’s regional influence, stemming the continent’s migrant exodus and bolstering the fight against Muslim militancy in the Sahel.
Three civilians were wounded on Monday in Burkina Faso after a grenade was thrown at French troops just three hours before Macron arrived in the capital, Ouagadougou.
“Two hooded individuals on a motorcycle threw a grenade towards a French army vehicle” as it made its way to a barracks housing French special forces, a security source said on condition of anonymity.
Three residents were wounded, one seriously, in the attack which took place at 8pm, the source said.
A reporter at the scene of the attack witnessed a small hole in the tarmac where the grenade detonated and a damaged civilian vehicle.
Macron is to also visit Ivory Coast and Ghana.
His advisors say his primary message will be to stress a partnership of equals with Africa, based on education and entrepreneurship, but regional security concerns will also dominate.
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