French PM in talks with Chad's Deby over jihadism fight

French Prime Minister Jean Castex, arriving in Chad Thursday to spend New Year's Eve with French troops, said he met Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno for talks on "stepping up" the fight against jihadism.

"We had a very fruitful, very deep exchange," Castex told reporters, after meeting Deby at Amdjarass, near Chad's eastern border with Sudan.

"We talked about ways of stepping up (bilateral) cooperation, with a common goal, which is fighting terrorism, be it in the Sahel or in the Lake Chad area," he told reporters.

Chad is one of the so-called G5 Sahel countries that are fighting a bloody jihadist campaign on the southern rim of the Sahara.

It is also grappling with attacks in the Lake Chad area, in its south, by insurgents from neighbouring Nigeria.

France intervened military in the Sahel in 2013 to help drive jihadists out of northern Mali. The insurgents later regrouped and advanced into central Mali, an ethnically volatile area, before mounting attacks on Niger and Burkina Faso.

France's 5,100-man Operation Barkhane anti-jihadist mission lost three soldiers in Mali on Monday when their armoured vehicle struck a road mine.

Castex was to pay tribute to them in a speech later Thursday at Barkhane's command headquarters at Camp Kossei, near the Chadian capital N'Djamena, French officials said.

He would then have a New Year's Eve dinner with some of the 800 troops at the base.

On Friday, Castex is scheduled to meet French troops stationed in the northern oasis of Faya-Largeau, and in Abeche, in the east.

In other remarks on Thursday, Castex referred to a likely summit in N'Djamena of the G5 Sahel and France, the coalition's main backer, in January or February.

Deby "will go to France shortly" for talks with President Emmanuel Macron "to discuss the range of perspectives" for the meeting, he said, giving no further details.

The N'Djamena summit will mark the first anniversary of a gathering in Pau, southwestern France, that reshaped strategy.

Military commanders have pointed to a number of tactical successes since the campaign shifted its focus to the lawless "tri-border" area where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso converge.

However, France is also looking to the Sahel countries, whose armed forces are typically poorly equipped and trained, to boost their role and thus ease the burden on Barkhane.

Chad, at the Pau summit, vowed to send a battalion of troops to the tri-border area, but its deployment has been delayed.