Chateau Celle St Cloud
Source: MAE
The French President Emmanuel Macron, gathered on Wednesday, December 13, at the Castle of Celle-Saint-Cloud (78), about twenty heads of delegation in support of G5 Sahel. Were present at this conference meeting for the G5 Sahel, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of the Republic of Mali, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Mahamadou Issoufou, President of the Republic of Niger, Idriss Deby, President of the Republic of Chad. The meeting took place in closed session with the President of the Republic and the Heads of State of G5 Sahel member countries. The leaders of about fifteen G5 Sahel countries and support organizations also arrived at the Chateau de Celle-Saint-Cloud, for the lunch of the heads of delegation that followed the meeting. Joint press conference by Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of the Republic of Mali and Moussa Faki, President of the African Union Commission. We publish the full text, transcript of the press conference of the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron at the end of this meeting in support of G5 Sahel.
 "Ladies and gentlemen, First and foremost, I would like to thank all the Heads of State and Government who attended the meeting we have just held, as well as my colleagues here, and I want to apologize to Chancellor Merkel who after her speech will have to leave us. to resume the extremely important negotiations taking place in Germany today, and I wish to thank her for being here. We therefore held a meeting following discussions at the African Union-European Union Summit in Abidjan, which brought together the five members of G5 Sahel, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. , and the president Keita is there as president of G5 Sahel, Germany, France, Italy but also representatives of Spain, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, of the United States of America and the Belgian Prime Minister who was with us. The European Union, the African Union and the United Nations were also with us, and I thank Mr. Moussa FAKI for the African Union for joining this press conference. All of the participants are what we have chosen to call the Sahel Coalition, which will support the field work of the G5 Sahel Force and the Alliance for the Sahel with its two pillars, security and development. is the commitment of all countries present and international organizations that we have here.-----------------------
Today, we have been able to agree on several points, first an effective operational organization with the G5 Sahel executive secretariat for entry point, and a single command. The five G5 states have agreed to reinforce their efforts in the central zone with greater effort, which will be both quantitative and qualitative, illustrating the degree of mobilization required. This effort will consist of an increase in the number of troops involved, a reinforcement of the command posts, an accelerated planning of operations with objectives for the first half of 2018. This increased effort is not a substitute for the work of MINUSMA, but we also wanted to open a work to reorient, in the UN framework, a greater involvement of all to support G5 Sahel forces. We will continue to advocate for Chapter VII to ensure that these operations can be sustained by reorienting some of the funding we have put on MINUSMA on the G5 Sahel.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 It is a reinforced support of partners that has also been noted today to accompany, give visibility and duration to the commitment of the different Member States. And beyond the States present here I wish to emphasize obviously the commitment of the European Union which has already committed 50 million euros but also Saudi Arabia which will contribute 100 million euros and the United Arab Emirates to the tune of 30. This is a first commitment and they also indicated their willingness to help do more, the United States confirmed their contribution of 60 million dollars. So we continue to expand the financial support that is present around the table and the contributions of the States, which is only a step in the mobilization since a conference of support and planning will be held in Brussels on February 23rd. to bring together all interested partners. We will also continue the mobilization on the political and development side and I want to welcome the commitment of President Keita who reiterated his will to accelerate the implementation of the Algiers Agreements and all his commitment both as President of the G5 Sahel in office and as president of Mali. It is therefore a very operational and concrete meeting that we have conducted today with reorientations, very concrete commitments, the will to go further financially, and I want to acknowledge the new contributions I have just made. to evoke and in particular the strong commitment of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and a willingness to start a new chapter in the field of international law and the UN framework that we have today." Stated French President Emmanuel Macron
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