Notwithstanding the promises of an end to the Françafrique era, France remains the desired external security actor in francophone Africa. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the discursive legitimation strategies of Emmanuel Macron on France’s military activism in Mali, inquiring ‘How did the French President Emmanuel Macron discursively legitimize France’s military presence in Mali before the announcement of the end of Operation Barkhane?’. The aim is further to explore the construction of the French Self and the Malian Other in the legitimation discourse, asking ‘How did Macron construct a French ‘Self’ and a Malian ‘Other’ in his discourse as legitimate reasons for maintaining the intervention?’. By applying an interpretivist, post-structuralist discourse analysis to official statements published between 2017 and 2021, the thesis concludes that Macron’s discursive legitimation strategies remain approximately similar, yet the greater emphasis on rhetorical themes of equal partnership, non-interference in internal affairs, democracy and an ever-increasing multilateralism have taken place in the face of Paris’ damaged legitimacy. Focusing on the construction of the Self and the Other affirms that Macron constructs the Malian Other as significantly different from the French Self even though the country is seen as capable of transformation and cooperation, requiring the compliance of Western advice.

This comparative case study examines how parallel deployments impact on UN peace operations’ legitimacy. It focuses on if and how the two French military operations, Serval and Barkhane, affected the legitimacy of MINUSMA. A theoretical framework on relational dynamics of parallel deployments and on legitimacy was established. The first step was to analyze the legitimacy of Serval/Barkhane. Thereafter, the relational dynamics between Serval/Barkhane and MINUSMA were analyzed. Last step was discussing how the legitimacy of respective military operation and the relational dynamics could explain the parallel legitimacy dynamics. Using assessment reports by different institutions, a qualitative within-case analysis was conducted to identify changes in legitimacy. The study shows that both Serval and Barkhane had a negative impact on MINUSMA’s legitimacy but in different ways. Serval affected the legitimacy negatively by creating high expectations that MINUSMA could not fulfill. Barkhane affected the legitimacy negatively by making the UN peace operation seem partial due to its association with the counterterrorist Barkhane.

Based on the understanding that Mali and Russia will be unable to contain the jihadist security threat in Mali, this paper explains why France withdrew from Mali in 2022 and why the latter intensified its cooperation with Russia. Existing literature points to operational obstacles and grievances directed towards France’s presence in Mali, however, it falls short of explaining whether these are explanatory for France’s withdrawal, or why France wouldn’t have left earlier considering these hurdles. Through process tracing and historical institutionalism, this paper studies the sequence of events that led up to France’s withdrawal, and whether the grievances against the popular dissatisfaction with the security framework in Mali actually has explanatory power over France’s withdrawal.