Mali Celebrates As French Ambassador Gets Expelled - Tasnim News Agency

Tens of thousands rallied in Mali's capital Bamako on Friday to celebrate the expulsion of the French ambassador from the country earlier this week.

Thousands of anti-French demonstrators have poured into the street of the Malian capital, Bamako, to cheer at the expulsion of the French ambassador, Al Jazeera reported.

The celebrations on Friday, where people burned cardboard cut-outs of French President Emmanuel Macron, came as tensions between the West African country and its former colonial power have been steadily soaring.

This video file cannot be played.(Error Code: 102630)

Mali's government summoned the French ambassador Joel Meyer on Monday, instructing him to leave the country over what the Malian military spokesperson called 'hostile and outrageous statements' by the French foreign minister.

Last week, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described Mali's transitional government as 'out of control' and illegitimate amid France's escalating tensions with the West African state following the military's ousting of the previous government.

The European Union announced on Friday the decision to impose sanctions against the figures in power in Mali.

France has had more than 50 military interventions in Africa since 1960, when many of their former colonies gained nominal independence.

Anti-French sentiment is on the rise in West Africa as the security situation deteriorates despite the presence of French troops in the troubled region. France recently deployed more troops in the Sahel despite opposition to its presence there.

Mali has become increasingly engulfed in violence since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 was hijacked by extremist militants, who perpetrated ethnic killings and attacks on government forces and civilians.

In 2013, France intervened in Mali to purportedly curb militants who had captured the desert north, before deploying troops across the Sahel. While it has sent more troops and the UN has also its own peacekeeper troops in the African country, violence has continued to intensify and spread in the region.

Nearly 7,000 people died due to the fighting in Mali in 2020, according to the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project, while the UN declared late last year that more than two million people had been forced to flee their homes because of the conflict, a number that has quadrupled since 2019.

More than 14 million people in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.