
President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday faced an angry backlash from France's remaining allies in West Africa and accusations at home of showing a neo-colonialist attitude after lamenting that African countries "forgot to say thank you" for France's decade-long military deployment to fight an Islamist insurgency.
France has been on the back foot in its former colonial territory of the Sahel region of francophone West Africa after military coups in Mali in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023 ousted elected governments and forced the withdrawal of French troops.