Video cartoons circulating on social media have shed light on a Russian propaganda campaign aimed at sapping France's influence among its African allies, analysts say.
They depict France as a voracious invader, an animal predator eyeing the riches of its former colonies, only to be overcome by those it sought to subjugate.
"We are Macron's demons," say skeletons in one video, supposedly dispatched by the French President. A giant snake in France's red-white-and-blue colours appears and announces he wants to "conquer all of Africa".
Armed white men in the combat fatigues of Russia's mercenary group Wagner are seen coming to the rescue of soldiers carrying the flags of Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire.
According to research by The Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington DC, the origin of the video is unknown, but it "appears to have first shown up on Twitter on 14 January, then migrated to alternative video platforms before being shared across pro-Russian Telegram channels".
Several of these cartoons have surfaced since December, proliferating on social media through pro-Russian accounts and pan-African influencers, AFP's Africa Factcheck unit has found.
A video put on Facebook on 21 December showed an aggressive rat called "Emmanuel" that's growing fat devouring a man's food. A soldier comes in wielding a giant sledge hammer marked with the "W" initial of the Wagner group and smashes the rat.
'Russian trolls'
How widely the videos have circulated and the impact they have is unclear. But they convey simple images which are effective across cultures and language barriers, a French military source admitted.
"They use the codes of child fiction that a wide cross-section can relate to and are clearly the work of Russian or pro-Russian trolls," possibly based in St Petersburg, Bamako or Ouagadougou, the source said.
Several diplomats and experts told AFP the videos are weapons in a major campaign whipped up by Moscow to win support in the Sahel.
They have fed into the anti-French hostility swelling in Mali and Burkina Faso - fragile countries where a jihadist insurgency has sparked discontent in the army, leading to coups against elected leaders.
"The African continent is becoming the expression of a proxy war ... against Western interests and particularly those of France," said Emmanuel Dupuy, head of the Paris-based Institute for European Perspective and Security (IPSE).
Mali's junta last year forced out French forces who had been key allies in its struggle against the jihadists since 2013, and Burkina this month followed suit.
Long-standing technique
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The use of cartoons supporting Russia's narrative in Africa is not new.
In 2019, a cartoon was used to glorify Wagner combattants in the Central African Republic, another former French colony where France has chosen to withdraw its troops, also in the face of hostility.
Wagner deployed its men in 2018 to help the CAR's beleaguered government recover territory from rebel groups.
The cartoon shows a bear "from a country far away in the north called Russia," who arrives to save an elephant attacked by hyenas trying to eat its food.
The helpful bear then "establishes peace" between the wild animals on the savannah.
Unlike other videos, that one carried credits at the end in the name of Lobaye Invest, a company with mining rights in CAR, according to the US Treasury which sanctioned it in September 2020 over links to Wagner.
Wagner's strategy is "to manufacture a favourable image ... to justify through media and cultural means its establishment and by extension, to legitimise Russia's growing presence in the region," researchers Maxime Audinet and Colin Gerard wrote last year on on the French analysis platform Le Rubicon.
France has been "slow to understand the scale of what was happening in this information war," the commentators said.
Paris is trying to catch up. The foreign ministry has set up a monitoring and strategy team and the army has put a general in charge of the issue.
In November, Macron stressed, during a speech at the French naval base in Toulon, that today "influence" is a "strategic priority".
(with AFP)
