Mali has removed French language as official language under Assimi Goita

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Mali has removed French language as official language under Assimi Goita.

Mali has removed French as its official language, a move that comes more than six decades after Bamako gained independence. The decision is contained in the West African country’s new constitution, adopted on Saturday.

On Friday, Bamako’s constitutional court validated the final results of a June referendum on a draft constitution, saying that it received 96.91% approval from voters.

French will serve as the primary working language, while the 13 national languages spoken within the country will be formally recognized as official languages. An additional 70 local languages, including Bambara, Bobo, Dogon, and Minianka, some of which were granted national language status through a decree in 1982, will be retained.

Mali has been ruled by a military junta since two coups in August 2020 and May 2021, following a decade of political instability marked by jihadist insurgencies.

Mali witnessed two subsequent coups in recent years, one in August 2020 and the other in May 2021.

The junta had initially promised to hold elections in February 2022 but later delayed them to February 2024.

The junta has insisted that a new constitution is essential to rebuilding the country, promising to return to civilian rule with elections in February 2024 after an earlier plan failed.

Interim President Assimi Goita announced on Saturday that the implementation of the constitutional framework signals the beginning of the Fourth Republic in the former French colony.

Around 70 local languages are spoken in the country and some of them, including Bambara, Bobo, Dogon and Minianka, were granted national language status under a 1982 decree.

On Saturday, Mali’s junta leader Col. Assimi Goita put the country’s new constitution into effect, marking the beginning of the Fourth Republic in the West African nation, the presidency said.

Since taking power in an August 2020 coup, Mali’s military has maintained that the constitution would be critical to rebuilding the country.