“If France had not intervened, if our soldiers had not fallen on the field of honor in Africa, if [the military operations] Serval then Barkhane had not been decided upon, we would not be talking today about Mali, nor from Burkina Faso, nor from Niger”, declared this Monday August 28 the French president in front of the French ambassadors gathered in Paris for their annual conference. “These states would no longer exist today within their territorial limits,” he said, insisting that France had intervened against the jihadists at the request of these Sahelian countries.
Nigerien soldiers, who seized power in Niamey on July 26, have since been holding the ousted President Mohamed Bazoum prisoner. And they have taken France, the former colonial power, as their preferred target, while Paris is calling for a return to constitutional order and remains in contact with President Bazoum, elected in 2021.
On Friday evening, tensions rose a notch when the military gave French ambassador Sylvain Itté 48 hours to leave the territory, which Paris refused, arguing that this government was illegitimate and had no authority to found such a request.
Emmanuel Macron praised the work of the ambassador and let it be known that he was still in Niamey. “France and diplomats have been confronted in recent months with situations in certain particularly difficult countries, whether in Sudan where France has been exemplary, in Niger at this very moment and I salute your colleague and your colleagues who have been listening since their position,” he said.
Paris, on the other hand, suspended its development aid and military cooperation, without denouncing the existing defense agreements with Niger as demanded by the military in Niamey.
Concretely, some 1,500 French soldiers are still present in Niger, which has become the pivot of its anti-jihadist system in the Sahel, but they now fear having to pack up. In Mali and Burkina Faso, where successive coups d’etat took place, France had to resolve last year to withdraw its troops and it no longer has an ambassador there.
The French leader has in passing tackled Washington – which has 1,100 soldiers in Niger – and certain European countries which advocate a diplomatic solution to the crisis. “From Washington to other European capitals, I heard voices, I listened to newspapers […] telling us ‘don’t overdo it, it’s getting dangerous'”, he underlined . “It has been said that France was too committed in supporting President Bazoum […] What would we do if a coup happened in Bulgaria or Romania? he snapped. “It looked like we’re going to look because they offered us a Prime Minister? “We don’t do double standards,” he said.
Mohamed Bazoum is “a man of integrity, democratically elected, courageous”, he said. “Because he does not resign, risking his life […], we are told that the good policy would be to drop him because it has become fashionable, because in fact we should produce locally now, even when they are putschists,” he quipped.
Emmanuel Macron immediately called on the leaders of the region to take more responsibility in the face of “an epidemic of putschs throughout the Sahel”, believing that “the heart of the response” should be political. “I call on all the States in the region to have a responsible policy”, insisted Emmanuel Macron, recalling that “we support the diplomatic action, and when it decides it military, of the ECOWAS [Economic Community of the States of West Africa, editor’s note], in a partnership approach”.
Regarding French policy in Africa, he advocated “neither paternalism nor weakness because otherwise we are nowhere”, while this week demonstrations could take place in front of the base where French troops are stationed to demand their departure.
Just hours after this speech, the European Union expressed its “full support” for the French Ambassador to Niger. “The decision of the putschists to expel the French ambassador is a new provocation which can in no way help to find a diplomatic solution to the current crisis,” said EU diplomatic service spokeswoman Nabila Massrali. in a press release. “The European Union does not and will not recognize the authorities that emerged from the coup in Niger,” she recalled.
