When Sébastien Lecornu spoke on the phone to General Birame Diop in early January, the French defence minister tried to read his Senegalese counterpart's mood. The purpose of the private call was to ease the increasingly tense relationship between their respective leaders. A few days earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had irked African heads of state when he complained they had "forgotten" to thank France for its military operations against terrorist groups since 2013.
Alluding to the ongoing
