THE CAT ON THE DUNE - Field Journal and Operations of a French Officer in the Sahel (2013 - 2022)

Preface by Michel GOYA

The author donates his royalties to Terre-Fraternité, an association supporting the wounded and bereaved families of the French Army.

The fruit of ten years' experience in operations conducted by France in the Sahelo-Saharan strip, this work recounts the experience of a senior officer engaged in operations. Far from being merely a field journal, it retraces in the manner of a travel diary the gradual discovery of these vast spaces, with their captivating populations and immense horizons.

The author offers a reflection grounded in field reality on the strategies implemented and dismantles several preconceived ideas about anti-French sentiment or the myth of the inevitable quagmire of Western interventions.

In these pages, punctuated by original maps and previously unpublished photographs, you will discover alongside the author the build-up of Opération Serval in 2013, the intervention in the Central African Republic in 2015, and spend three years in Mauritania traversing the Sahara and gaining an understanding of part of the Moorish culture. We will then follow him during Opération Barkhane in 2020, in command of the air-land base at Gao and the attempts to restore the Malian state's presence in the east of the country. Finally, we return to Bamako in 2022 within the European Union Training Mission (EUTM), where we witness the deterioration of the political and security situation that led France and its partners to withdraw their troops and support.