Mali: Can Maïga go back on military agreements signed with France?

Accustomed to making bitter remarks about France, Mali’s head of government Choguel Maïga launched a new round of attacks on 15 January. He repeated, over and over, that Paris had “prevented the Malian army from entering Kidal”, created “a terrorist enclave”, and then denounced its “abandonment in midair” in the fight against terrorism.

In a lengthy interview broadcast on ORTM – during which he mentioned military cooperation with Russia, the national conference and the transition timetable – Maïga questioned the very foundations of the military agreements that bind the two countries.

‘Unbalanced agreements’

During the interview, the prime minister stated that the main point of friction is the Malian airspace. “We want to review the unbalanced agreements that make us a state that cannot even fly over its territory without French authorisation,” he said.

Anxious not to further aggravate