This is the end of more than ten years of French anti-jihadist combat in the Sahel. The last French soldiers deployed in Niger must leave the country this Friday, December 22, marking the divorce between Paris and the military regime that came to power through a coup d’état in Niamey.
The withdrawal of 1,500 French soldiers and airmen from Niger, the last allied country of Paris in the Sahel before the generals came to power on July 26, follows those from Mali and Burkina Faso, where France was also pushed towards the exit by hostile juntas.
The French ambassador left the country at the end of September
After a two-month standoff with the new authorities in Niamey, who denounced several military agreements with Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron ended up announcing at the end of September the departure of French troops from Niger “by the end of the ‘year”. The French ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itté, expelled by the authorities, left the country at the end of September, after weeks where he had been stuck inside the diplomatic representation.
The withdrawal maneuver of French troops, which began at the beginning of October, represented a logistical challenge since it partly involved a 1,700 km journey on roads and tracks crossing desert and marshy regions where jihadist groups are active, to reach the capital Chadian N’Djamena where the command of French forces in the Sahel is located. According to sources close to the matter, part of the French containers leaving Niger will be transported by land from N’Djamena to the port of Douala in Cameroon, a journey of approximately 1,500 km also crossing dangerous areas, before taking the way to France by sea.
Reconciliation with Moscow
In Niger, the bulk of French troops were deployed at the Niamey air base, and the others alongside Nigerien forces on two advanced posts in the three-border area between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, considered a hideout. groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). Since the coup d’état in Niger which overthrew the elected president Mohamed Bazoum, still sequestered in his residence, the Nigerien generals in power have severed ties with several Western partners and have moved closer to the Russians.
However, there remain American contingents in Niger, and more modestly, German and Italian contingents. At the beginning of December, Niamey announced the end of two European Union missions, civil and military. The United States and Germany have said they are ready to resume discussions with the Nigeriens.
For several months, the Sahel has experienced an increase in attacks by jihadists and rebel groups which has left hundreds of people dead. Mali, Burkina Faso and now Niger, which have formed an alliance against jihadism, have also moved closer to Moscow.
In Mali, the forced departure of French soldiers in 2022 left a bitter taste: the bases of Menaka, Gossi and Timbuktu were very quickly occupied by Wagner’s Russian paramilitaries. In all, 58 French soldiers have been killed in combat in the Sahel since 2013 and Operation Serval launched by the president at the time, François Hollande, to support the Malian government against armed Islamist groups.
Its embassy closed since Thursday
Concretely, France has decided to close its embassy in Niger, where “it is no longer able to function normally”, we learned from diplomatic sources on Thursday, definitively marking a divorce between the two countries. This is a rare extreme measure. In Mali and Burkina Faso, where military regimes have also ousted the French army in recent years after coups, France has maintained its diplomatic representations, despite strong tensions with these countries which have moved closer to Russia , as Niamey seems to do.
Four French officials, intelligence agents according to a Burkinabè source, computer maintenance technicians according to a French diplomatic source, were arrested in Ouagadougou at the beginning of December.
But the dispute seemed insurmountable in Niger where, “after the attack on our embassy on July 30, and after the establishment of a blockade around our hold by Nigerien forces, we proceeded, at the end of September, with the departure of most of our diplomatic personnel,” explained the diplomatic sources. “The French embassy in Niger is therefore no longer able to function normally or carry out its missions. Taking note of this situation, we have decided to close our embassy soon” and in this context “had to proceed with the dismissal and compensation for our local law agents,” they continued.