“Down with France!” Cries of anger, a tricolor flag burned by the crowd and stones thrown at the barbed wire walls of the French embassy in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Sunday, July 30, five days after the coup by the head of the presidential guard, General Abdourahamane Tiani, the rejection of the former colonial power rumbled again in the Sahel. Several thousand supporters of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP), the self-proclaimed junta which is still sequestering President-elect Mohamed Bazoum, gathered in front of the diplomatic compound before being dispersed by tear gas canisters. The symbol is strong in this country, which until now remained one of France’s last allies in the region: demonstrators tore down the plate of the embassy to replace it with Russian and Nigerien flags. In a press release on Sunday night, the putschists further hardened their tone against Paris, accusing it of having “fired tear gas canisters and used their weapons” at the embassy and left “six injured”. The junta then accused France of having held “a meeting at the headquarters of the national guard”, to obtain authorizations in order to “carry out strikes within the presidential palace in order to free the president”. Boom.
French President Emmanuel Macron “will not tolerate any attack against France and its interests” in Niger and Paris will respond “immediately and intractably”, quickly reacted the Elysée. The Quai d’Orsay Crisis Center advises French nationals not to travel to the capital, as new gatherings are announced on Monday. On Saturday, after a defense council convened by Emmanuel Macron, France decided to suspend its budgetary support to the country and demanded “the return to constitutional order without delay”. In the process, the European Union announced the immediate cessation of its cooperation in the security field, affirming that it “does not recognize and will not recognize” the authorities resulting from the putsch. On Sunday, the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), meeting in the capital of neighboring Nigeria for an emergency summit, hit even harder, giving a week-long ultimatum putschists to release and reinstall Bazoum in power, claiming not to exclude a “use of force”.
The situation is becoming inflammable in Niger, while on the one hand, the Bazoum camp castigates a “coup d’etat for personal convenience” and intends to resist despite the army rallying to the putschists, while on the other, General Tiani blows on the separatist embers, to try to tip the street in his favor. The evening before, his spokesperson warned the population on national television against an “imminent military intervention” by ECOWAS in Niamey, carried out, according to the junta, in collaboration with “non-member African countries” and ” some western countries. A few days earlier, another statement accused France of violating border closures by landing a military plane at Niamey airport.
In the capital, won over to the political opposition, it was enough to galvanize the demonstrators who came out, despite the ban, at the call of “M62”, a civil society organization, whose activists have been demanding for several years the departure of French forces from the country, where 1,500 soldiers are deployed in the fight against terrorism. “Long live Russia”, “Long live Putin!”, chanted some, brandishing Russian flags, like a snub to the West. Niamey, Bamako, Ouagadougou… These images have become commonplace in the Sahelian capitals, where the rejection of France is progressing, certainly instrumentalized by the juntas to stay in power, but which is also and above all the expression of a feeling of failure shared by the populations in the face of the multiplication of jihadist attacks in the region, despite ten years of French operations in the Sahel. “Many do not understand why this great world military power is unable to contain the threat, some want to believe that Russia will be more effective, in a context of polarization with the war in Ukraine”, estimates Seidik Abba, Nigerian journalist and specialist in the crisis in the Sahel.
Prigozhin in ambush
Operation Barkhane, development aid, the “arrogance” of French politicians, the CFA franc… In Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world despite its uranium-rich soils, criticism of the former colonizing countries are numerous, whether founded or fantasized. After Mali, shaken by two putschs in 2020 and 2021, then Burkina Faso in 2022, this umpteenth coup in Niger illustrates the reverse of Western strategy in the region. The country, located in a strategic position to monitor jihadist movements in the heart of the Sahel, had been chosen by France to become the “laboratory” of the new French system, after the withdrawal of its troops from Mali in 2022.
While Russia is advancing its pawns on the African continent – Burkina Faso has turned to Moscow and Mali has called on Wagner’s mercenaries – the risk of losing its Nigerien partner is feared by Westerners. And according to American law, the United States, which has several bases there and provides intelligence to the French, cannot provide security aid to governments resulting from coups d’etat. In the meantime, it would seem that Evgueni Prigojine, Wagner’s boss, wasted no time. In an alleged message, which could not be fully authenticated by AFP, he is already reaching out to the putschists in Niamey, saying their coup “is nothing but the struggle of the Nigerien people against the colonizers “. “A thousand Wagner fighters are able to establish order and destroy the terrorists,” he proclaimed in an audio message broadcast on July 27 on Telegram.