France was particularly involved in this region, partly because of its colonial past. For example, in 2013, Operation Serval (90) was launched to help re-establish the Malian state (until then considered the most “advanced” state in the region) and to support the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)

resulting from the Algiers process, signed in May/June 2015 in Bamako, responds to this concern for a political and social treatment of the crisis in the northern regions of the country. It provides in particular for political and institutional reforms such as increased decentralization granting more powers to local populations allowing them to par

power and certain ethnic groups who consider themselves mistreated. This challenge is posed to certain countries in the Sahel with the intention of central powers, for example, to settle nomadic ethnic groups in order to better control them. (59) On the other hand, to the extent that populations attach more importance to their membership in an ethn

These bleak prospects are forcing people to move. Most stay in their own country, often migrating from north to south, but other people travel to neighbouring countries in search of work. Previously, millions of West Africans worked in Libya. With the trend towards state dissolution in the region in recent years, illegal migration to Europe has inc

“Ranked among the most fragile in the world, the Sahelian states are characterised as poor and administratively weak. They lack a legitimate monopoly on violence and a well-functioning social contract, and struggle to control their borders and vast territories. Different forms and varying levels of instability are prevalent, especially following