Le Mali fait un geste envers Paris en graciant un agent français condamné
The Malian junta made a gesture towards Paris on Thursday by pardoning a French intelligence agent sentenced to 20 years in prison in June, after years of high tensions with the former colonial power.
This decision comes at a time when the Malian military authorities have been very weakened for several months, following a large-scale offensive at the end of April by a coalition of jihadists from the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM, affiliated with Al-Qaeda) and Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), who have increased their hold in the north of the country.
"The Transitional Government informs the public that by decree," the head of the Malian junta, General Assimi Goïta, granted a presidential pardon to the French agent, the Malian government announced in a statement on Thursday.
This decision "is accompanied by the immediate removal of the person concerned from the national territory", the statement specifies.
This gesture of appeasement comes after years of high tensions between Paris and the Malian junta, which in recent years has grown closer to Russia in particular.
The Malian government stresses that the pardon does not "call into question the facts established by a contradictory judgment rendered during a trial," asserting that the French officer was "tried and convicted following a fair trial."
Officially assigned to the French embassy in Bamako, the officer, identified as Yann V., was arrested on August 13, 2025 along with several officers of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa), during an operation carried out by the Malian intelligence services.
He had been accused of conspiracy against the institutions of the Sahelian country.
The officer had spent nearly 10 months in detention in Bamako between his arrest and his trial and was being held until recently at camp 1 of the gendarmerie in Bamako.
In the same statement, the Malian government praised "a brotherly country", without naming it, "whose good offices, exercised with discretion and in scrupulous respect for the sovereignty of Mali, contributed to obtaining this pardon".
According to a Malian military source interviewed by the French newspaper Le Monde, Morocco played a role in the negotiations for the release of Yann V. This country maintains good relations with both France and Mali, and its mediation has already led to the release of four French agents from the DGSE (French foreign intelligence) detained in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
The Malian officers arrested in August 2025 along with the French agent, and subsequently dismissed from the army, have still not been tried. They are accused of having established a network of espionage and conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the institutions of the Malian transitional government in order to carry out a coup d'état.
At the time of the arrest of its citizen, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the accusations as "baseless." In the following days, France also suspended its counter-terrorism cooperation with Mali and ordered two Malian diplomats to leave the country.
According to the Quai d'Orsay, the French agent "was carrying out a security cooperation mission and in no way did France participate, directly or indirectly, in the destabilization of Mali".
The Sahelian country has been gripped by a deep security crisis since 2012, fueled in particular by violence from groups affiliated with the jihadist organizations Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, as well as community criminal groups.
Since two successive coups in 2020 and 2021, the country has been led by military officers who came to power on the promise of restoring security and preserving its territorial integrity.
The junta has turned away from the former French colonial power in its fight against jihadists to move closer militarily and politically to Russia.
In February 2022, faced with deteriorating relations between Bamako and Paris and public hostility in Mali, France ordered the withdrawal of its 2,400 troops from the country, which took effect in August of the same year.
In recent months, the fighting has intensified since the coordinated offensive by JNIM and the FLA.
On Thursday, the Malian army announced the release of 82 soldiers held prisoner by JNIM and FLA since this offensive.
A source at the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AFP that this release is the result of mediation by Algeria, with whom Mali began a détente in July.
Having been at odds for over a year, the two neighboring countries took observers by surprise by announcing the return of their ambassadors and the reciprocal reopening of their airspaces.
AFP
Commentaires (15)
Participer à la Discussion
Règles de la communauté
💡 Astuce : Utilisez des emojis depuis votre téléphone ou le module emoji ci-dessous. Cliquez sur GIF pour ajouter un GIF animé. Collez un lien X/Twitter, TikTok ou Instagram pour l'afficher automatiquement.
Se connecter
Commentez avec votre profil, votre photo, et soyez averti des réponses.