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Soriek  1yr ago (text post)   1204 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 21

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the the Ukraine War, or even just whatever you’re reading. Megathread for the Israel-Palestine conflict is here though if you want to talk about it in this thread as well feel free.

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France

Socialist leader Melenchon has gotten some flak for his less than sympathetic coverage of the Gaza crisis. In May his party, La France insoumise, together with the Communist Party, pushed for a resolution to boycott Israel and condemn them as an apartheid state, so this has not exactly come out of nowhere, but the movement seems divided in the wake of the attacks, with other socialist MPs condemning their leadership.

France has been in an awkward spot with its former colonies as they successively coup and expel their French military guests. This week they have finally begun withdrawing troops from Niger en masse, though Italian and German troops remain and the government has requested American troops as well (unlikely to happen, as the US has now formally declared the coup to be, in fact, a coup, which means we’re barred from sending no military assistance). On the other hand, recently France has begun to run flights again to Mali. The Guardian runs a retrospective on the great de-Frenching:

In Mali, violence has surged since military regimes took over in 2020. The deal cut by the new rulers with Wagner forced Paris to end the deployment of thousands of French troops that had fought Islamist extremists and other insurgents for a decade. In the last two years, with 1,000 Wagner mercenaries now in Mali, atrocities have multiplied, accelerating a negative feedback loop of abuses, recruitment to jihadist groups, more attacks and more abuses.

In Burkina Faso, where French forces were told to leave after a military takeover last year, the number of people killed by militant Islamist violence has nearly tripled compared with the 18 months before. “This violence … puts Burkina Faso more than ever at the brink of collapse,” said the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in a recent report…

During the month after Niger’s military seized power, extremist-linked violence increased by more than 40%, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. At least 29 Nigerien soldiers were killed by jihadists on the border with Mali last weekend by more than 100 extremists using homemade explosives. It was the second such attack in a week.

Speaking of managing colonial relations, France and Corsica have been in negotiations about their own relationship for months now. This culminated in Macron recently visiting Corsica and promising them “autonomy within the Republic”. The independence group FLNC set off bombs at 20 locations yesterday, which I guess shows how they feel about that.

Wild that the Corsica stuff is still ongoing. It seems pretty intractable unless France is willing to be more radical, although I suppose this kind of low level violence is tolerable for now, as it mainly only hurts Corsicans (the homes bombed were second homes, so it’s an attack on the tourist industry).

I think they maitained peace pretty well for the past decade or so, and my understanding is the flare up is over something the French government didn't have much to do with, which leaves me hope there's still room for resolution (though maybe if they're fighting for irrational reasons that should give me less hope)

(the homes bombed were second homes, so it’s an attack on the tourist industry).

It's good to know at least it doesn't seem targeted at random civilians.

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