African governments have criticized a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron in which he said that some leaders showed “ingratitude” for the deployment of his nation’s troops in the Sahel region in battling Islamist extremism. Macron told French ambassadors at a conference in Paris on Monday that Sahel nations – beset by civil conflicts and violent extremism – only remained sovereign because of the deployment of French forces. Macron also dismissed the notion that French troops had been expelled from the Sahel, an area that sits just below the Sahara Desert, as Paris’ influence on its former colonies wanes. “We had a security relationship. It was in two folds: One was our commitment against terrorism since 2013. I think someone forgot to say thank you. It does not matter, it will come with time,” Macron said at the conference. “Ingratitude, I am well placed to know, is a disease not…
