France is preparing to leave Niger, its last ally in the Sahel: a final snub for Paris, already driven out of Mali and Burkina Faso, and a page that is turning after a decade of anti-jihadist military intervention in the region.
At the end of an untenable two-month standoff with the military regime, President Emmanuel Macron finally gave in by announcing on Sunday the return to Paris of the ambassador and the withdrawal of 1,500 soldiers “by the end of the year “.
This forced withdrawal comes after that of Mali, in August 2022, and Burkina Faso, in February 2023. In all three cases, Paris was pushed out by military regimes that came to power after coups d’état, riding on a feeling anti-French and turning, in the case of Mali, towards cooperation with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
Until the coup d’état of July 26 which overthrew elected president Mohamed Bazoum, Niger was one of Paris’ last allies in the Sahel, and the centerpiece of its new anti-jihadist system in the region.
The withdrawal of this country “confirms the fiasco of France’s policy in the Sahel”, comments researcher Yvan Guichaoua (Brussels School of International Studies) on X (ex-Twitter).
For many observers, Paris did not see or did not want to see the developments underway in the region.
“Mali has made a splash, we know that we were facing a major trend. We’ve been seeing this wave rise for years. France felt that it was losing its footing, but it remained in denial and stupor,” estimates a French diplomatic source.
And this source adds: “We find ourselves today faced with the consequences of the hypermilitarization of our relationship with Africa”, when the Sahel region, one of the poorest in the world, is also ravaged by crises. safety, environmental, community.
Since his first election, Emmanuel Macron has attempted a change of course in Africa, already present in the Ouagadougou speech in 2017 then reiterated in February 2023, outlining a less military approach centered on relations with civil society and “soft power”. . “Françafrique is dead,” he insisted again on Sunday.
But Paris was criticized for its inconsistencies. If he condemned the coup d’état in Niger, he accommodated the first putsch in Mali in 2020, and the following year dubbed Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who came to power in Chad without a constitutional process.
Reality principle
The reality principle ultimately won out. In Niger, the ambassador that Paris refused to recall was secluded in the French embassy, without diplomatic immunity, with food and water reserves which were running out.
On the Niamey base, and on the advanced posts in the remote northwest at Ouallam and Ayolou, the resupply of the troops was carried out in “more or less complicated conditions”, according to the French general staff. The 1,500 soldiers and airmen present in Niger would have found themselves without a mission, their drones, helicopters and fighter planes remaining grounded.
In addition, France, a former colonial power, which still has several African bases – in Chad, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon, and Djibouti – quickly appeared isolated. Its Western allies have distanced themselves from its policy of inflexibility in Niger.
“With this umpteenth setback, France sees its influence and its power diminished like nothing else in West Africa in particular and in Africa in general,” judges the Senegalese daily. Walf Daily.
For researcher Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné, of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), “France did not know how to withdraw at the right time and wanted to continue to play the leader in a context where the sociological environment has strongly changed.”
The withdrawal from Niger will represent a logistical challenge for the French armies if it has to be done in three months, against a backdrop of deterioration in the security situation throughout the Sahel. In Niger alone, around ten jihadist attacks have left more than a hundred dead, half of them civilians, since July 26.