Macron ends war on Sahel jihad groups

President Emmanuel Macron has announced the formal end of France’s troubled eight-year anti-jihadist operation in the Sahel region of Africa, refocusing defence efforts on Europe instead and promising closer ties with Germany and Britain. Unveiling a ‘‘national strategic review’’, Macron said he was drawing a line under Operation Barkhane four months after France withdrew its troops from Mali amid a dispute with the country’s military rulers. Macron insisted that French military support for African countries would continue ‘‘according to new principles that we have defined with them’’.