May 6, 2021

 

Will Chadian disappointment change Paris’s approach to the Libyan scene? Will it contribute to reconsidering the issue of supporting Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar? This guard, who was supposed to secure the southern border of Libya, which witnessed the launch of the rebel attack against Chadian President Idriss Deby. It is no secret that France has invested heavily in the head of the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar, but with a guarantee of loyalty, perseverance, and sometimes suspicious ideological complicity. Haftar was a strategic bet for France that history would score. As for the security assistance provided to him in the beginning, and then the diplomatic and political support since 2016 to this authoritarian figure in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya, it has never ceased to anger the European partners of Paris, amounting to causing tensions within the French scene itself.

The aim was to enable this “strong man”, immersed in the fight against terrorism, to stabilize Libya in the midst of post-Arab Spring chaos in order to establish a health cordon around Operation Barkhan in the Sahel.

In this regard, Ghassan Salama, head of the United Nations mission in Libya, said in a statement to Le Monde newspaper in April 2019 that “France’s vision is more regional than it is Libyan,” which explains the extent to which the recent unrest in Chad was against the expectations of Paris.

It turned out that relying on the Libyan Field Marshal is nothing but pure arrogance. The “border guard” not only failed to stop the waves of infiltration from Libya, but the rebel group that caused the killing of Chadian President Deby, the Rotation and Accord Front in Chad, was the product of a military alliance that was established around Haftar in the middle and southern Libya. The Field Marshal has always been generous in mandating Chadian and Sudanese mercenaries, especially from Darfur, in addition to the Russian fighters that Russia puts in his custody.

The fact that the Chadian “Rotation and Accord Front” is part of this coalition does not mean that Haftar participated or agreed to the attack that killed Deby.

The deceased President Deby has always declared his rapprochement with Haftar in the name of the war on terrorism and the strategic partnership that has strongly encouraged France to end Operation Burkhan.

Haftar had no reason to attack former Chadian President Deby by relying on a group of mercenaries.

Haftar’s inability to prevent Chadians from attacking his friend Deby in this context has been revealed by a former United Nations official who asserts that Haftar’s presence in Fazan, Libya, is not dangerous, while France has not ceased to describe Haftar’s position primarily on the grounds that he controls 80 per cent of Libyan territory.

Did Paris overestimate Marshal Haftar’s potential in view of his abilities and his allies?

In conclusion, what is left of France’s strategic bet on Haftar? If we take the jihadist threat as a criterion, the Field Marshal’s “efficacy” can be recognized, borrowing a phrase used by a high-ranking French security official against what was known as the Islamic State in Benghazi between 2016 and 2017, at the expense of the indiscriminate bombing of entire residential neighborhoods at that time France provided Haftar with valuable intelligence data, but he used it to fuel his ambitions for a greater invasion of Libya.

With a broader view at the regional level, the results of the French expansion were mixed, as the attack launched by Field Marshal Haftar in the spring of 2019 against the Libyan government in Tripoli, during the rule of Fayez Al-Sarraj, who is officially supported by the United Nations, did not lead to any tangible result, while it caused a humanitarian catastrophe and an unprecedented escalation for foreign intervention in Libya.

As for the influx of Russian fighters in support of Haftar and the Turkish military backed by Syrian fighters, it was the result of the attempted invasion by Haftar on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, which was tolerated by the French position.

Today, France appears angered by an Ottoman expansion in western Libya, on the Tunisian borders, in conflict with French interests in the Mediterranean.

As for the Russian fighters, suspicion and apprehension still surrounds the American position on them, while France views the Turkish threat more menacing than its Russian counterpart, due to the Turkish entanglement with jihadist elements.

How much will it take for the French fear of the Russian presence in sub-Saharan Africa to mature, especially the French Square?

It is not possible to understand the Chadian earthquake outside this new scene that is about to form. Should we trust the American scenario, which indicates that the “Rotation and Accord Front” enjoyed support from the Russian Wagner Front in their attack on former President Deby? To date, there is no official evidence to confirm the US allegations.

A Chadian official in N’Djamena suggests the possibility of a relationship between the rebels of the “Rotation and Accord Front” and the Wagner fighters, in addition to the suspicious element, which is the aforementioned front’s possession of surface-to-air missiles. In the shadow of an alliance loyal to Haftar in the Libyan Fezzan, although determining the responsibility of either of them remains difficult to the moment.

Paris’ awakening remains brutal after the search for stability on the coast forced it to bet on the “Libyan strongman”.