Mali Junta Pardons French Agent Jailed for ‘Undermining State’
In a rare conciliatory move, Mali’s junta leader, General Assimi Goïta, has pardoned a French intelligence agent serving a 20-year prison sentence. The agent, identified as Yann Vézilier, was arrested in August 2025 alongside several Malian officers for allegedly planning a coup.
France denied the claim, saying the agent was “carrying out a security cooperation mission, and at no point did France participate, directly or indirectly, in the destabilisation of Mali”. In a countermeasure, France suspended counter-terrorism cooperation with Mali and expelled two Malian diplomats.
The Malian government said Goïta’s decision to release the agent demonstrated his “commitment to peace and dialogue, as well as to the ancestral values of forgiveness, hospitality, and magnanimity that characterise our culture”.
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France has suspended counterterrorism cooperation with Mali and ordered the country’s diplomats to leave Paris. The move followed the arrest of a French diplomatic staff member in Bamako in August.
The expulsion by the French government is the latest twist in a spiralling row between Paris and Bamako, which has been
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![A French soldier secures an area next to an abandoned jihadist bomb factory in Gao, Mali, February 13, 2013.]()
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said discussions are underway to secure the release of one of its nationals, who the ministry said is an employee of the French embassy in Bamako. Malian authorities said the French citizen who was arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, accusing “foreign states” of trying to destabilise the country.
The West African country’s
Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goïta
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