Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, has been quoted as saying in a video that his country would not hand over Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The claim was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, alongside the video of Macron.
At the time of retrieval from the microblogging platform, the post, made by a verified X user on September 2, 2023, had garnered three million views, 4,373 reposts and 10,000 likes.
This comes as a political crisis rocks West and Central Africa over an upsurge in the number of military takeovers on the African continent.
Claim: Emmanuel Macron said France would not hand over Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in a video
Verification
The CDD War Room observed that the video posted alongside the quote shows the moment when Macron was speaking at the Conference of Ambassadors held in Paris, capital of France, on August 28, 2023.
In the 20-second video posted by the verified X user, Macron could be heard speaking in French, as translated: “If France had not intervened, if our military had not died (in battle) in Africa, if Serval and Barkhane had not been decided, we wouldn’t have Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger today.”
We further checked Macron’s full speech at the conference and found that he didn’t say France would not hand over Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The statements that followed what he said in the viral video read, “These States would no longer exist with their current borders. I can say that with certainty. And so when I sometimes hear even from French political leaders that Barkhane was a failure, I say that you must not use the enemy’s arguments because that does a disservice to everyone. You are paying a strange tribute to our troops.”
Verdict: Misleading
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