The two officials of the French embassy in Bamako were suspected of espionnage.
On September 15, the two French soldiers were arrested in Bamako in the early afternoon.
According to AFP, the pair work at the French embassy and were taking pictures of a football field to update the evacuation plan for French nationals in the Malian capital.
The Malian transitional government did not make any official statement, but diplomatic sources quoted by AFP cited “security reasons” to justify the arrest.
After “verifications,” the two French soldiers were released in the morning of September 16.
This case comes amid deteriorating diplomatic relations between Paris and Bamako.
Diplomatic Crisis
The military who took power in Mali, following a coup against Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020 followed by another putsch in May 2021 against the president of the transition Bah N’dao and his Prime Minister Moctar Ouane.
The junta accused France of abandoning Mali midway into the fight against jihadists.
In June 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of Operation Barkhane, which has been operating against jihadists in Mali since 2014.
In response, Bamako moved closer to Russia and reportedly called in the Russian private military company Wagner to fill the gap left by France.
In the aftermath, the transitional authorities repudiated the defence agreements with Paris, which, pushed towards the exit, sped up the definitive withdrawal of its military from Mali.
A new stage in this crisis was reached when, in a letter to the UN Security Council, the Malian government accused Paris of backing jihadist groups.
AC/te/lb/as/APA