France’s Defense Minister lashed out against the Marvel Studios movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever over its portrayal of French soldiers, underscoring the sensitivity regarding the country’s military presence in Africa.
(Bloomberg) — France’s Defense Minister lashed out against the Marvel Studios movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever over its portrayal of French soldiers, underscoring the sensitivity regarding the country’s military presence in Africa.
“I firmly condemn this false and deceptive representation of our armed forces,” Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote in a tweet on Sunday, commenting on a clip from the movie posted by a journalist.
The scene from the film first released in November showed French mercenaries caught stealing resources belonging to the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda. The soldiers in the scene were dressed in uniforms similar to those of France’s Operation Barkhane in Mali, a journalist pointed out on Twitter, prompting the minister’s reaction.
An official at France’s Defense Ministry said the tweet reflected the minister’s personal view and that France had no plan to demand the movie’s withdrawal. It’s his duty to stand up for French armed forces if there are misconceptions, the official said when contacted by phone by Bloomberg News.
Media representatives for Walt Disney Co. in the US didn’t immediately return phone calls and emails seeking comment outside of normal office hours.
President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to revamp France’s military commitment to African security even as its Operation Barkhane soldiers have been leaving Mali, pushed out by the ruling junta there in favor of forces from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
France has been trying to counter Russian influence in Africa, including efforts to link the recent food crisis to European sanctions.
French troops entered Mali in 2013 to try to stop al Qaeda-linked militants from advancing toward the capital, Bamako. They ended up staying as violence spilled across national borders in the Sahel region.
“I am thinking about and honor the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali, at its request, in the face of Islamist terrorist groups,” Lecornu also wrote in the Sunday tweet.
The movie is one of the latest superhero pictures from Disney’s Marvel unit. The first Black Panther film in 2018 was a watershed moment for Disney and the industry as the first big-budget superhero movie to feature a largely Black cast. The picture went on to gross almost $1.4 billion worldwide, dispelling myths that action movies starring people of color wouldn’t perform well abroad.
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