FRANCE TO WITHDRAW TROOPS IF RADICAL ISLAMISM GROWS IN MALI

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would consider withdrawing troops from Mali if he saw growing tendencies towards radical Islamism following the recent coup, he said in comments published.

Mali's president and prime minister were forced to resign from their positions earlier this week, after being detained in a coup staged by the vice president. Macron said he saw such tendencies in Mali and if they grew, he would bring French troops home, he told Le Journal du Dimanche.

France has more than 5,000 troops deployed in Mali to back up local forces against Islamist extremist groups. Germany's Bundeswehr also has several hundred soldiers stationed there.

Macron said he had made it clear to West African leaders that he would not support a government that lacked democratic legitimacy.

On Sunday, the regional alliance ECOWAS will hold a summit to discuss the political turmoil in Mali.

The talks come days after the colonel who led a military coup in Mali declared himself officially the country’s leader. Mali's Constitutional Court published a judgment late Friday declaring that Colonel Assimi Goita would assume the presidency.

Goita also led a coup last August that ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita from office after nearly seven years. Mali has been rocked by instability and plagued by Islamist terrorists for years. A United Nations mission is deployed there to help stabilize the country.

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