Jean-Yves Le Drian and Florence Parly so familiar to West African capitals for the past five years as the ministers of foreign affairs and the armed forces have departed office in President Emmanuel Macron's post-re-election reshuffle...

And France's armed forces minister Florence Parly has questioned whether her country's military partnership with Mali could be sustained under its new rulers...

Fears of such a spiral of violence explain the tough messages from Ecowas and Paris where Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly has warned that the deployment of Wagner would be 'incompatible' with the continued presence of France and other international military partners...

Defence Minister Florence Parly has spoken of plans to bolster training and greater cooperation with coastal countries seen as at risk of southward spreading jihadist activity...

The role of Le Drian who was Defence Minister under Macron's predecessor François Hollande was greater than that of Florence Parly the current Defence Minister...

Earlier this year armed forces minister Florence Parly said an initial cut in troop numbers was possible...

He had said in January that the successes of Barkhane 'will enable us to adjust our effort' and French Defence Minister Florence Parly said that a troop reduction of 600 was likely...

Meanwhile French Defence Minister Florence Parly and armed forces head François Lecointre took care to deny Paris's involvement...

Possibly in order to offer some fillip to Malian morale after the attack at Indélimane French Defence Minister Florence Parly announced on 6 November that France's Barkhane force had killed the JNIM spiritual leader Abou Abderahman al Maghrebi on 8-9 October...