Conflict in Northern Mali: Media coverage by French weekly magazines from 1900 to 2010

Since independence, in 1960, Mali, in its Northern part, (the three administrative regions: Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal), has faced ongoing insecurity, across the vast Sahara desert. The Tuareg community, deeply rooted in their nomadic culture, have long dreamt of forming an independent state in the border area between Mali, Niger and Algeria. The Malian state has always opposed their irredentist claim, which counters national unity and territorial integrity. From 1990 to 2010, the process to implement peace agreements was punctuated by actions of rebels. From abroad, the French weeklies provide incomplete and biased information about this security phenomenon. Most of the time, this media coverage ignores daily realities, peace and development actions, and favours security developments, attacks and reprisals between rebels and regular army. In such circumstances, it is of utmost importance for the medias to give all available information. Through my research, I thus intend to highlight the gap between the coverage by the French weeklies of the conflict in the North of Mali and the ground realities, from 1990 and 2010.