A court in Mali has handed a 20-year jail term to an official at the French embassy accused of being a spy and “undermining state security,” judicial sources told the AFP news agency on Friday.The sentence is a new blow to relations between the west African nation, ruled by a military junta since a 2021 coup, and former colonial ruler France.Detained since his arrest in August 2025, the Frenchman was also hit on Thursday with a €5,400 fine and a 20-year ban on entering Mali, three separate court sources confirmed.At the time of his arrest, Malian authorities accused the official, identified as Yann V., of working for the French intelligence services and railed against “foreign states” trying to destabilise the insurgency-plagued country.He was detained on 13 August in the company of several Malian officers, who were allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the military junta.France again insisted that the charges against the official, who was working at the French embassy in the capital Bamako, were without merit.”Our agent is the subject of legal proceedings involving baseless accusations,” the French foreign ministry said on Friday.”Our official was carrying out a security cooperation mission and under no circumstances has France participated, directly or indirectly, in the destabilisation of Mali.”Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group, as well as local criminal gangs.Under junta chief Assimi Goita, the country has turned its back on the West, especially France, in favour of closer ties with Russia.Mali, alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, is ruled by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens.But the security situation in the Sahel region has worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and a record number of civilians killed both by Islamic militants and government forces.