France Condemns Portrayal of French Army in ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

The depiction of the French army in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is apparently an issue.

According to France 24, the Minister of the Armed Forces of France Sebastien Lecornu is complaining about how the French army is being portrayed in the box office hit.

In a social media post on Twitter, Lecornu wrote that he “strongly condemned” the way the fictional French soldiers were depicted in the movie. In the film, the group of mercenaries was caught trying to steal resources from Wakanda, the fictional country portrayed in Wakanda Forever. He called the scene a “misleading representation of our Armed Forces.”

He included a scene from the movie that shows warriors from Wakanda leading the captured soldiers into an assembly of world leaders and making them kneel in front of the assembly.

Translated by Google:

“I strongly condemn this misleading and misleading representation of our Armed Forces.

“I think and pay tribute to the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali at its request against Islamist terrorist groups.”

Je condamne fermement cette représentation mensongère et trompeuse de nos forces Armées.

Je pense et rends hommage aux 58 soldats français qui sont morts en défendant le Mali à sa demande face aux groupes terroristes islamistes. https://t.co/KpnFIcatPt

— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) February 12, 2023

AFP reported that Lecornu told the media outlet that France was not calling for the movie to be withdrawn or to censored. France is sensitive to how it is perceived in west Africa after military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso urged France to withdraw its troops, which had been deployed to the Sahel region since 2013 to fight jihadists.

Lecornu is “angry at seeing the film.” The defence ministry stated that “no revisionism can be allowed about France’s recent actions in Mali: we intervened at the county’s own request to fight armed terrorist groups, far from the story told in the film, namely a French army coming to pillage natural resources.”