‘False’ and ‘misleading’ was how France’s defense minister Sebastien Lecornu described Marvel Studios’ superhero movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s depiction of French soldiers deployed in Africa.
Minister Lecornu tremendously criticized the representation of French armed forces members as a fictional group of a wicked band of soldiers. His indignation came as a tweet that was published Sunday.
Strong Lecornu Sentiment
Lecornu was responding to a series of Feb. 11 tweets by French journalist Jean Bexon where he noted the similarity of the military uniforms worn by the villainous mercenaries and those of France’s army in the 1991 Gulf War.
“In the latest American Marvel production (Black Panther Wakanda Forever), the evil French mercenaries operating in Mali are dressed as Operation Barkhane soldiers,” Bexon said on his Twitter account as he referenced the camouflaged Gulf War uniforms worn by French military forces.
“I am thinking of and honoring the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali, at its request, in the face of Islamist terrorist groups,” Lecornu added.
The issue is sensitive in France, which completed its withdrawal from Mali last year after nine years of fighting Islamic extremists alongside regional troops. Tensions have also grown over the past year between Mali, its African neighbors and Western nations after Mali’s transitional government allowed Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to deploy on its territory.
Not censorship nor withdrawal
The defense ministry has stressed, however, that France was not calling for the withdrawal or censorship of a work of art.
But he strongly emphasized that “no revisionism can be allowed about France’s recent actions in Mali: we intervened at the county’s own request to fight armed terrorist groups, far from the story told in the film, namely a French army coming to pillage natural resources,” the minister underscored.
People close to Lecornu said he was “angry at seeing the film”, which was released as Russia appears to be making progress in turning West African populations against France and its military deployments.
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