In a tweet published this Sunday, the Minister of the Armed Forces denounced the representation of French soldiers in a sequence from the Marvel film released in November 2022.
Sébastien Lecornu attacks Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In a tweet published this Sunday, the French Minister of the Armies expressed his dissatisfaction with the representation of French soldiers in a sequence of the film, directed by Ryan Coogler.
Journalist Jean Bexon, who shares an excerpt from the film on social networks, explains that “the bad French mercenaries who operate in Mali are dressed like soldiers from Operation Barkhane” in the Marvel feature film.
This scene, which acts as an introduction to the film, depicts a French military unit in September 2025, trying to force the entry of a Wakandan research center in Ansongo, a town in Mali, to recover vibranium, a fictitious natural resource.
At the same time, the queen of the powerful kingdom of Wakanda, Ramonda, speaks at a United Nations summit imagined in Geneva and declares that the possession of such a resource by “ill-intentioned powers” represents a danger.
Misinformation controversy
What challenge the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, who hastened to react to this passage. “I strongly condemn this false and misleading portrayal of our Armed Forces,” he wrote on Twitter.
And to add: “I think and pay tribute to the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali at its request against Islamist terrorist groups.”
When it hits theaters in November 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had been the subject of several controversies as to the image given to France in this film vis-à-vis its presence in Mali, in connection with Operation Barkhane, lifted at the same period.
Some specialists, such as journalist Jean Bexon – at the origin of the video extract – had then pointed the finger at the disinformation carried by the film and the similarities between the looters of Marvel’s fiction and the real Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which the junta in power in Mali since the departure of French soldiers. This militia would have economic interests there like the exploitation of gold mines.
Since its release, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made the best start of the year 2022 in the United States. In France, the film exceeded 3 million viewers in just four weeks of release.
