Editing to start end October 2022.

The war against Islamist terrorism, which was the stated objective of the mobilization of France and the international community, is being held in check - in the Sahel as before in Afghanistan - by the reality on the ground.
Apart from the jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, other movements came to the fore which can no longer accept their place within the borders inherited from the colonial era: the Tuareg people from the North who, for centuries, have controlled several trans-Saharan trade routes in the entire Sahel region, Fulani herders deprived of herds and land, Islamized communities who contest the legitimacy of these predatory states. And everywhere there is pressure from young people, who represent almost 3/4 of the population and contest the social order of these countries… Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, which are among the poorest in the world.
To explain this collective failure, Nathalie Prevost and Olivier Jobard have been travelling for two years the width and length of Mali from Bamako to Kidal via Timbuktu, Gao and Mopti, meeting political leaders, heads of politico-military movements and traditional and religious leaders. They filmed the last hours of the French army in its bases, but also the Tuareg and Moorish fighters from the north preparing for the battles to come, the young ultras of Bamako shouting their hatred of France and their nationalist fervor.
A journey that tells of the diversity of this vast territory and of the expectations of populations in search of a new social and political order.