French and African intervention in Mali deserves our support

In fact, the French armed forces are in Mali at the invitation of the Malian government, and all the reports from Malian capital Bamako show massive popular support for the French intervention.

This is by no means an exclusively French affair. Troops from a host of west African countries are on their way to join the fight against the Islamists who have seized northern Mali.

The fight against the Islamists has the support of the entire African Union, and of all members of the United Nations security council (including Russia and China).

It should also be noted that the form of Islam espoused by the terrorist groups who have attacked Mali has nothing in common with Islam as actually practised in Mali.

In fact, the terrorists regard mainstream Malian Islam as "heretical," and have destroyed the shrines to Sufi saints in the historic Malian city of Timbuktu.

The Islamists have also tried to outlaw music, although Malian music, by such performers as Salif Keita, Mory Kante and Ali Farka Toure, is famed and loved across Africa.

Not all military interventions are diabolical imperialist conspiracies, and the French action deserves the support of all of us.

Holt also seems to deny the very existence of al-Qaida. Judging from his letter he holds to the utterly discredited theory that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001 were "an inside job." But socialists will get better results if they stick to reality, rather than indulging in wild fantasies.

Paul Fauvet

Maputo, Mozambique