Backgrounder: Mali's Bus Tup With Ally France

Bamako, May 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th May, 2022 ) :For nine years, France was Mali's staunchest ally in its fight against militants who have claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Today, French forces are pulling out after a breakdown with the country's military junta, which this week renounced Mali's core military agreements with France.

What has happened? - Downward spiral - France began its anti-militants operations in the Sahel in 2013, helping Mali, its former colony, to snuff out a revolt in the north.

But the jihadists regrouped to attack the volatile centre of the country, initiating a full-throated insurgency that elected president Ibrahim Bubacar Keita was unable to brake.

In August 2020, protests against Keita culminated in a coup by disgruntled colonels -- a move followed by a second military takeover in May 2021.

From then on, relations with France went steadily downhill, propelled by the junta's resistance to setting an early date to restore civilian rule and by Bamako's charges that France was inciting the region to take a hard line against it.

The bustup accelerated in 2021 as the junta wove closer ties with Moscow, bringing in "military instructors" that France and its allies condemned as mercenaries hired from the pro-Kremlin Wagner group.

In January this year, the French ambassador to Bamako was expelled and the following month, France announced the pullout of its troops from Mali, and those of the French-led Takuba force.