Coup in Niger highlights loss of French influence in Africa

Anti-French rhetoric stemming from a mixture of resentment against the colonial past, Barkhane operation it is used as fuel to stabilize the region and to legitimize the coup due to the opportunism of the military officials. Images similar to those taken last year in Burkina Faso were reproduced in Niger. it happened with Demonstrations against the French embassyProtesters shouting “liars” against President Emmanuel Macron and waving russian flags. The animosity between Paris and Niamey intensified this week: new officials accused the former colonial power of violating its airspace – which has been closed since Sunday – and of “unleashing terrorists” with the alleged aim of destabilizing the regime.

African country with the largest French military presence

A cloud of uncertainty covers Niger’s future. This Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gives priority to diplomatic channels to empower the impeached president, Mohamed Bazoum, but does not exclude military intervention. Consolidating the coup administration would be a complete setback for France. In fact, it would threaten its existence on Nigerian soil. 1,500 French soldiersdeployed as part of anti-jihad operations serval And barkhaneIt started in 2013. It could also weaken economic ties with a country that contributes 25% of European imports of uranium, an important mineral for the nuclear industry.

After forced withdrawals from Mali and Burkina Faso, Macron had chosen Niger as the key region in realigning the French military presence in the Sahel. However, the July 26 coup caught him off guard. Along with Djibouti, African country with the most French soldiers (5,650 across the continent). Although the junta in Niamey does not formally ask them to leave, it denounced “security and defense co-operation agreements” with Paris last week.

“I cannot allow them to say that operation Barkhane has failed,” said Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu recently, in the face of criticism from African countries, as well as France, for the meager results of his military intervention in the Sahel. Although this operation killed nearly 3,000 jihadists and numerous leaders of the local branches of the Islamic State and al-Qaedathe presence of these groups in the region remains as important as it was ten years ago.

A growing anti-French sentiment

For almost a decade, French military intervention has fueled hostility towards the former colonial power and other Western actors in Niger. United States of America wave European Union. According to a recent report by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), “these discourses are no longer confined to the intellectual elite as in the past, but strongly penetrated among popular categories“.

“There is a shifting geometry in France’s condemnation of coups in the region. If the military in Niger had dismissed the president, but had maintained ties with Paris, the condemnation of the French authorities would of course not have been so harsh. Macron assures france africa finished, but by his behavior in Niger or Chad —He supported a coup there— reproduces the same neo-colonial mechanismsIn her statements to El Periódico from Prensa Ibérica, historian Amzat Boukari-Yabaria explains:

According to this pan-African militant, the failure of aid and economic cooperation policies – they did not help Niger to stop being one of the poorest countries in the world – and harsh immigration management – the EU has made this country one. key player in the externalization of borders, this also promoted anti-French sentiment – without making it easier to issue visas. But above all, these successive blows in the Sahel, Boukari-Yabaria said, ” Militarization as the only solution to the problems in the region“. If France does not change its relationship with these countries, it will be very difficult to continue in the region,” says this expert.