The withdrawal of French forces from Mali, which concluded in August 2022, was not just a military failure but also an important psychological turning point for French society. The reaction to this event was ambiguous and evolved from an initial shock and sense of defeat to the formation of a sustainable consensus excluding the possibility of any new large-scale military intervention in Africa.

From Military Mission to Political Defeat: A Shift in Narratives

The decade-long presence of French forces in Mali, which began with the successful Operation Serval in 2013, gradually lost support both within the country and abroad. Initially, the intervention was perceived as a necessary measure to protect a friendly state from jihadists, but by the early 2020s, French public opinion was tired of the protracted conflict. Experts estimate that the military mission \"Barkhane,\" which replaced Serval, lacked clear strategic goals and conditions for victory, leading to the loss of meaning for the operation in the eyes of the general public. Ultimately, according to several studies, France's military intervention in the Sahel was perceived as a failure that not only failed to resolve the problem but also exacerbated instability in the region.

The Financial Burden and War Fatigue

One of the key factors forming a negative attitude to the presence in Mali was its high cost. In 2020 alone, the operation cost the French budget nearly 1 billion euros, accounting for 76% of the country's military expenditure on foreign operations. However, the achieved results did not match the expenditure. Jihadist groups were not destroyed but scattered throughout the Sahel region. This led to the French society, facing economic difficulties, no longer seeing the point in financing a costly and seemingly endless war in Africa.

The Withdrawal as Inevitability and the Formation of a New Consensus

By the time the actual withdrawal of troops in 2022, this decision no longer caused mass protests. On the contrary, a consensus had formed in society that returning to military presence in Africa was impossible. As noted in analytical materials, the French public no longer supports sending troops to Africa, even if requested by an besieged government. The defeat in foreign policy, which was initially painful to endure, gradually transformed into a pragmatic acceptance of a new reality. Many experts viewed the withdrawal of troops as France's inability to contain jihadist groups and as a concession to the expanding influence of Russia in the region, which only strengthened public opinion in the need to review the entire African strategy.

Thus, the French society's reaction to the withdrawal of troops from Mali evolved from disappointment in the failed mission to the formation of a sustainable imperative against any new intervention. The costly and, as it turned out, fruitless ten-year experience led to Paris losing its former confidence in its \"mission\" in Africa, and the French no longer supporting military expeditions on the continent, marking the end of an entire era in the country's foreign policy.

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