Malian defense minister killed in attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases

Did they not just take all of Iran's physical gold... Like they'll just give it back right? Brick for brick?

They are not even hiding that they are Nazis

Yes, technically they are now a subsidiary of Russia’s Ministry of Defense. However, Kremlin is trying to keep them as far away from Russia as possible. I bet if something happens to them, Putin won’t be too upset.

It should be taken into account that most supporters are malians not into the country anymore and are commenting that everything is fine from some western big cities.

> Any report claiming that things aren't going well is systematically rejected and categorized as a French fabrication. It sounds like a comfortable way of thinking, honestly.

France is deeply unpopular in Mali because they got between the northern Tuaregs and the southern Malian troops. As soon as they left entire villages were massacred, and now the country's falling apart like in 2012 before OP Serval. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, the AES, are currently military dictatorships who use France as the scapegoat while their country is actively falling apart. Complaining about the Franc CFA is just another propaganda tool. Every country is free to leave the Franc CFA, a few countries have. Mali did so temporarily last century before rejoining. But frankly, it's just kind of a good deal to use the FCFA, since it's stable. Mali confirmed it will keep using the FCFA just 2 months ago. Mind you ever since France joined the Eurozone, the Franc CFA by definition isn't really managed by France, but by the ECB. The last reform has stopped requiring having 50% of the state's reserves stored in Paris (which was insurance to be able to maintain the parity with the Franc then the Euro) and France gave up it's management seat at the BCEAO. The Franc is French only by name (hence the rebranding to Eco), and by the fact France is the reason it's pegged to the Euro. France has lost the vast majority of their influence over West Africa, and Africa in general, over the past decade.

If it was really about the Franc CFA, they would have left it like Madagascar and a handful of other countries. Make no mistake, we French ARE deeply unpopular due to past colonialism and neo-colonialism, but we are also used as scapegoats for every problem the governments can't or won't fix. The Franc CFA is backed by Euro (and previously the French Franc) which has benefits in economic stability, and downsides in lack of flexibility, but they could absolutely leave it and print their own bills. It's just not convenient, unlike blaming France for the fact they won't print a new independant money. Same deal with the local Al Qaeda franchise, they keep feeding them men with their ethnic cleansings and village massacres, and the corruption in their army allows the jihadi to buy rntire military kits on the c****, but admitting that makes them look incompetent, so instead they claim France is financing and equiping the terrorists.

> due to grievances over the CFA Franc. This really is the lowest level of analysis. You just repeated something you've heard somewhere while having no f****** clue what you're actually talking about.. Mali have some legitimate reasons to be angry with France but that's definitely not one of them. Every country is free to ditch the Franc CFA, if it wants to. In fact Mali literally did between 1962 and 1984. But turns out, despite all its fault, the franc CFA still has some really big advantage that out weight a lot of the cons. When Mali used the franc Malien, the average inflation over the period was >20%; and it had to be devalued 3 times because it was worth absolutely nothing and they couldn't buy anything from their neighboring countries that were still using the franc cfa. And that's why, in 15 month, 15 countries will ditch the franc CFA, and will adopt the Eco. Because while a single country economy can't make it work, if several countries works together it's a lot easier. Mali is part of that project, and that was a decision that was taken by the previous democratically elected governement. So yeah, contrary to what you think, the reason the Junta has kicked the french army, has absolutely nothing to do with the franc CFA. The real reason is a lot simpler in fact. France was in Mali because the former government invited them. When the junta took power, the french army refused to work with the junta, and only wanted to work with the democratically elected government. So basically the Junta had a foreign army on its territory that refused to work for them. Obviously they didn't want that. The Junta wanted to constrain part of the population by force, which the french army categorically refused. So they kicked them, called the Russians, who not only said nothing about the crime the junta were committing, but even gladly helped them doing it. And finally the Junta is also as most juntas are f****** clueless about how to run a country, so they need scape goats they can blame when something goes wrong, and the french army was perfect on that role. The junta ran a strong propaganda against the french army, and managed to make out of the french the culprit for almost everything that went wrong in the last years in Malia. They literally slaughtered an entire village with the Russian help, and tried to blame the french for doing it. And while the rest of the world saw the images the french army gave to prove that was in fact Wagner who buried the corpse. The Malians themselves only heard the propaganda and to this day still mostly believe that the french slaughtered entire village, and they are much safer being protected by the real culprit.

Western countries are more responsive to local governments and country governments. Generally they try to help local inhabitants with medical help etc. You can complain about Western troop actions and get a response. You can kick them out and they will leave, they will try to insist that you are being short sighted. Ru troops, IE, Russia Africa Corp as they are calling them are generally mercenary troops and from what I read before are not really concerned about local populations. You cannot call up Moscow and say, he troops are misbehaving. Like mercenaries, they are there for profit. Ru would never had left Syria, except their position was untenable, resupply was impossible and they were supporters of the former leader. While French troops are probably technically mercenaries. (Foreign Legion) for all practical purposes they report to the French government and are not there for profit motives. France was not the best of colonial administrators, and there may be some bad memories, I believe the "hate" was stirred up by propaganda as result of the government being deposed and France was advocating for the deposed administration, Moscow seeing opportunities to find new places for theft and innocents to fill the ranks on their death march in UKR worked to kick out the French. It is an easy google to look for what did Russia say about France in Mali. [https://hrf.org/latest/russias-influence-in-mali/](https://hrf.org/latest/russias-influence-in-mali/) From the same article  The agreement between the Malian junta and Wagner allegedly [involved](https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-deal-allowing-russian-mercenaries-into-mali-is-close-sources-2021-09-13/) Wagner receiving $10 million a month for its services and gaining access to [three gold mines](https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1374898/politique/russie-comment-wagner-compte-faire-main-basse-sur-des-mines-dor-au-mali/) in the country.

This was mostly propaganda pushed by Wagner / Russia. France doesn't handle the money, it just prints the banknotes, which is very different. These countries can ask other countries to print their money, and they can also do it themselves. And it could be solved anyway with other countries handling this same money. Russia invested and continues to invest a lot for propaganda in these countries, but they don't care about the people which is why the situation didn't get better. France had economic interests and security interests but ultimately doesn't care that much and just left. Security interests are for everyone, terrorists may not stop at borders, and if you don't stop them there, you can't be surprised if tomorrow they're in other countries. But things can be more complicated obviously. When the leaders did a coup themselves to get the power, it's not shocking to also see them fall in a coup. And corruption can be very high in these countries.

No leftists would say that

FAFO! They did all this shit without a plan. Decolonize but have an after decolonize plan... Not bribery/corruption... New govt same as the old govt plan!

I mean India is a nation, not a continent. A diverse nation absolutely. But they have a government that (nominally) represents them. So you can speak about India, the state, and India, as represented by their government policies. Africa can't be talked about in that way. Egypt and Botswana have very little in common.