Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 78

Operation Serval

Another Beau Geste of France in
Sub-Saharan Africa?
Lt. Gen. Olivier Tramond, French Army, and
Lt. Col. Philippe Seigneur, French Army

S

erval is the name of an African wild cat. Beau
Geste is the title of a famous 1939 Hollywood
movie about the French Foreign Legion in
Africa, inspired by a British novel. The expression beau
geste (beautiful gesture) suggests someone bravely doing
the right thing to help another regardless of personal
cost or benefit.
In December 2012, the democratic government of
the Republic of Mali—a former French colony in West
Africa—asked the French government to help it push
back radical Islamist insurgents in the north. Operation
Serval is the name of the subsequent French military
operation in Mali from January 2013 through July
2014. As of November 2014, French troops remain in
Africa’s Sahel region to help Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad,
Mauritania, and Niger counter terrorists.
This article describes lessons learned from
Operation Serval’s force build-up and deployment
in 2013. Among these, some lessons learned from
Afghanistan yielded good results, and others were
rediscovered—even with the very different conditions
between Mali and Southwest Asia.1
Starting 11 January 2013, French forces blocked,
rolled back, and cornered jihadi armed groups in Mali.
Only a few weeks before, they were getting ready to return to their bases after redeploying from Afghanistan.
In fact, they were waiting for further force cuts expected to be described in a pending defense white paper on
national security, under strict budgetary constraints.
Thanks to pre-positioned forces and a new readiness
system, early in 2013 the French Army managed to deploy a whole brigade with its main combat and combat
service support assets. These 4,500 troops prevailed in
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the fight against a fanatic enemy in extremely demanding conditions caused by a harsh climate, long operational distances, and rugged terrain (see figure 1). In
the first three months of the intervention, the following
effects were achieved:
The terrain. The main towns were liberated and
the jihadist stronghold in the north was cleared.
The enemy. The terrorists suffered heavy losses
and their infrastructure was disrupted.
The population. Foreign nationals were protected. The jihadist rule was abolished. Free elections
occurred July 2013 (and again August 2014).
The international community. France demonstrated its determination and paved the way for
African and international troops to help stabilize Mali.
Five months after the beginning of the operation,
French, Malian, and Chadian units had rolled across
Mali among cheering crowds—visibly happy to be
freed from the strict Sharia law (referring to an Islamic
moral code, religious law, and court system) enforced
by the jihadists. French troops cleared sanctuaries of
the group known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) in the Ifoghas mountain range. They fended
off attacks by another group known as the Movement
for Oneness and Jihad in Western Africa (MOJWA) in
Gao (a region of Mali). In May 2013, France’s President
François Hollande said—
We did not intervene instead of Africans, but
with the Africans, thus allowing a peacekeeping operation to take place in the conditions
of international legitimacy on the one hand,
but also efficacy on the other hand. We are
staying, there again, with this lighter troop

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November-December 2014  MILITARY REVIEW