France’s defense minister has called out Marvel Studios’ superhero film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever for representing it’s troops in Africa in a “false and misleading” way.
Minister Sebastien Lecornu “strongly condemned” the resemblance of a fictional group of evil mercenaries to members of the French armed forces in a tweet published on Sunday about the film, which was shown in France and the United States in November.
The film follows a fictional African country, Wakanda, pitted against western nations seeking control of fictional natural resources across the continent.
A scene from the film retweeted by the minister shows a group of soldiers, with their hands tied behind their backs and dressed in uniforms very similar to those used by French forces deployed in Africa’s Sahel, being taken to the UN in Geneva.
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The film’s scene features mercenaries captured by the Wakandas after attacking an outpost in Mali.
“I am thinking of and honoring the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali, at its request, in the face of Islamist terrorist groups,” Lecornu added.
The issue is sensitive in France, which completed its withdrawal from Mali last year after nine years of fighting Islamist extremists alongside regional forces.
Tensions between Mali and its African neighbors and western countries rose last year after the caretaker government in Mali allowed Russian Wagner Group mercenaries to station on its territory.
France recently announced that it would withdraw its troops from Burkina Faso this month at the request of the West African country’s military rulers.
Around 3,000 French soldiers are still stationed in the Sahel, many of them in Niger and Chad.
