Giscard d’Estaing: France Military Intervention in Mali is Neo-Colonialism

PARIS,(ST) _ Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing said Hollande should have limited France’s action to the defence of Bamako before the arrival of African troops.

“Airstrikes in the north and east of the country will hit the civilian population and repeat the pointless destruction of the war in Afghanistan with the same result,” he wrote in Le Monde newspaper.

His comments echoed those of Dominique de Villepin, a Gaullist former prime minister, who warned at the weekend that the Mali mission was destined to fail because its objectives were not clear.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde , the former French President added that  the  French ground operation in Mali  is illegal because they should only confine  to providing logistics support  for the African troops under UN Security Council Resolution No. 2085, which agreed to send an African  mission to support Mali.

Estaing warned  that the attempts  of the current French authority to expand the French  land mission in Mali can be  increasingly described as neo-colonialist operation .

D’ Estaing, who visited Timbuktu city in  central Mali during his presidency of France between 1974 and 1981 explained that Mali  is an independent state inhabited by different  competing nationalities and  that terrorist groups  many of them came  from abroad occupied the north east of the country and the members kidnapped hostages and endangered their lives and that of air strikes to stop their  advance toward the capital, Bamako something might be justified, but air strikes will lead to undue destruction as was the case during the war in Afghanistan , adding that  the aerial bombardment would lead to hardness and cohesion in the ranks of terrorists.

However, cracks in France’s united front behind military action in Mali have appeared as concern mounts over the expanding operation and the reluctance of other Western powers to commit troops.

 French Opposition leader Jean-Francois Cope called the intervention “just and necessary,” in a parliamentary debate that underlined strong support across the political spectrum.

But Cope also admitted he was “extremely concerned that France should be so isolated.”

Cope told parliament: “When our soldiers are engaged, our hostages are threatened, a spirit of national unity is required and takes priority over minor quarrels.”

But he went on to question President Francois Hollande’s diplomatic preparation for military action.

“Why have you not been able to put together a real coalition, as was the case in (the French-led intervention) in Libya in 2011?”

An intervention initially presented as limited to air strikes and the defence of the capital Bamako has escalated dramatically since the weekend.

French troops on Wednesday engaged Islamist fighters in western Mali, defence officials have confirmed that the ground force will grow rapidly to 2500 men and air strikes have been extended to the north.

France’s NATO allies have expressed strong moral support for the intervention and offered various forms of logistical support while ruling out sending any of their own combat troops.

In France, the action has been backed across the political spectrum, with the exception of the far left, and by 75 per cent of voters, according to the latest poll.

Former foreign minister Alain Juppe described the deployment of ground troops as “extremely risky.”

“We have the means to do what we did at the start of the campaign, air strikes, but we certainly don’t have the means to deploy in a territory two or three times as big as France,” he told French radio on Wednesday. “They are at home in the desert. We are not.”

Hollande said on Wednesday he would allow parliament to vote on military action in Mali if the intervention lasted more than four months, as required by the constitution.

T. Fateh