French leave

On Friday hundreds of people, many waving Russian flags, marched toward France’s military base demanding the French leave.

On Friday hundreds of people marched toward France’s military base demanding the French leave while waving Russian flags.

Siaka Coulibaly, an analyst with Burkina Faso’s Center for Public Policy Monitoring by Citizens, warned of a “severe degradation of security” if the French leave, because African armies aren’t ready to fill the void.

My efforts at French leave me at once inert and exhausted, as though I’ve been dog-paddling in a pool of standing water.

The Islamist insurgents attacked the northern city of Timbuktu for the second time in a fortnight last week, promising to "open the gates of hell," when the French leave.