The French Government announced on October 5 that this week it will begin to withdraw its troops from Niger, amid tensions with the Military Junta that assumed power in that African nation last July. The total repatriation of French soldiers will culminate at the end of 2023. The first to return will be 400 soldiers based in Ouallam, near the border with Burkina Faso and Mali.
“In application of the decision of the President of the Republic, France begins this week the withdrawal of its soldiers and military equipment present in Niger,” the French Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
“The effective withdrawal begins this week. This maneuver should allow the return of all soldiers before the end of the year,” detailed the statement from the French Ministry of Defense, specifying that coordination with the Niger Army will be “essential” and that “all measures have been taken to guarantee that the movements develop in good order and security.”
On September 24, following the July coup that overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum and fueled anti-French sentiment among the population, President Emmanuel Macron said his country would end its military presence in Niger and withdraw its ambassador.
In this way, Macron ordered the repatriation of the nearly 1,500 soldiers deployed in that Sahel nation in the last decade.
At the end of September, the Niger coup junta had demanded from France a “negotiated” calendar for the withdrawal of its presence in the country and stated that “any person, institution or structure that poses a threat to the interests and projects of the country must leave this earth, whether they want it or not.
Loss of ground in the Sahel against jihadists
Until the July coup, Niger, a former French colony in West Africa, was considered a bastion of stability compared to its neighbors and France’s main ally in the face of the jihadist threat in the Sahel.
The Sahel, a region that extends across North Africa as a transition area between the Sahara Desert and the Sudanese savanna, has been a central concern for Europe for a decade, especially due to the presence and action of jihadist groups. in the area known as “the three borders”: between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
France began its military assistance in the Sahel with anti-terrorist operations in Mali in 2013 and a year later expanded its presence to the entire region.
But by 2022 France withdrew from Mali after a coup d’état and the same thing happened in Burkina Faso, with the departure of French forces in February of the following year.
Now, with Niger, the European country continues to lose ground in the region, where jihadist groups have intensified their attacks due to the instability of the territory after the overthrow of Bazoum.
In fact, on October 2, the deadliest terrorist attack since the coup d’état was recorded, an attack in which, according to the Ministry of Defense, at least 29 soldiers were killed in the west of the country.
Of the nearly 1,500 French soldiers who will leave Niger, around 400 are precisely deployed, along with Nigerien troops, in the northwest of the African nation, close to the border with Burkina Faso and Mali.
Precisely, the “400 French soldiers based in Ouallam (west) will be the first to pack their bags. The Niamey air base, where the majority of French soldiers are located, will be dismantled at the end of the year,” confirmed this October 5, the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP), as the military junta is called, in a statement.
Despite the withdrawal, Macron indicated in September that his Government will be “always available” to support the fight against jihadist groups in the Sahel, where its military presence remains for now in Chad.
Population dissatisfied with the French presence
On September 27, the ambassador to Niamey, Sylvain Itte, returned to France, after the Niger Military Junta ordered his expulsion in August.
At the time, the order to withdraw both the troops and the ambassador was unknown to France, which generated massive protests in front of French military bases and in front of the French embassy in Niger.
“We are willing to sacrifice ourselves today, because we are proud,” Yacouba Issoufou, one of the protesters, told the Reuters news agency at one of the September protests. “They looted our resources and we realized it. So they have to go,” he added.
The Government of Emmanuel Macron has reiterated its support for the deposed president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, and after his overthrow also expressed support for the efforts of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reverse the coup.
On Wednesday, October 4, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna assured that the coup plotters are keeping Bazoum as a “hostage” in “inadmissible conditions.”
Likewise, Colonna explained that France was negotiating with the coup plotters the return of French troops “with certainty” but stressed: “this does not mean at all a change in the fundamental position” of France on the legitimacy of Bazoum as president of Niger.
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