The French president’s announcement appeared to end two months of defiance in which Paris’s ambassador had been kept in place in Niamey despite coup leaders ordering him to leave.
“France has decided to withdraw its ambassador,” Macron told French television in an interview, without giving details over how this would be organised. “In the next hours our ambassador and several diplomats will return to France.”
Niger’s military rulers have banned French aircraft from flying over the country’s airspace, according to the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar website. It was not clear if this would affect the ambassador being flown out.
Macron added that military cooperation was over and French troops would withdraw in “the months and weeks to come” with a full pullout by the end of the year.
He added: “We will consult the putschists, because we want this to be done peacefully.”
Niger’s military rulers responded swiftly in a statement read out on national television.
“This Sunday, we celebrate a new step towards the sovereignty of Niger,” said the statement from the military rulers, who seized power by overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum on 26 July.
“This is a historic moment, which speaks to the determination and will of the Nigerien people,” the Niger statement added.
France keeps about 1,500 soldiers in Niger as part of an anti-jihadist deployment in the Sahel region. Macron said the post-coup authorities “no longer wanted to fight against terrorism”.
Niger’s military leaders told the French ambassador, Sylvain Itté, he had to leave the country after they overthrew Bazoum.
But a 48-hour ultimatum for Itté to leave, issued in August, passed with him still in place as the French government refused to comply, or to recognise the military regime as legitimate.
Earlier this month, Macron said the ambassador and his staff were “literally being held hostage” in the mission, eating military rations with no food deliveries taking place.
In the interview, the French president reaffirmed Paris’s position that Bazoum was being held “hostage” and remained the “sole legitimate authority” in the country.
“He was targeted by this coup d’etat because he was carrying out courageous reforms and because there was a largely ethnic settling of scores and a lot of political cowardice,” Macron said.
The coup against Bazoum was the third such putsch in the region in as many years, following similar actions in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022 that also forced the pullouts of French troops.
But the Niger coup is particularly bruising for Macron after he sought to make a special ally of Niamey, and a hub for France’s presence in the region after the Mali coup. The US also has more than 1,000 troops in the country.
Macron regularly speaks by phone to Bazoum, who remains under house arrest in the presidential residence.
The French president has repeatedly spoken of making a historic change to France’s post-colonial imprint in Africa, but analysts say Paris is losing influence across the continent especially with the growing influence of China, Turkey and Russia.
The Economic Community of West African States threatened military action to restore Bazoum but so far its threats, which were strongly supported by France, have not transferred into action.
“We are not here to be hostages of the putschists,” said Macron. “The putschists are the allies of disorder.”
Macron said that jihadist attacks were causing dozens of deaths a day in Mali after its coup and that now such assaults had resumed in Niger.
“I am very worried about this region,” he said.
“France, sometimes alone, has taken all its responsibilities and I am proud of our military. But we are not responsible for the political life of these countries and we draw all the consequences.”
Source: theguardian
Author: Agence France-Presse in Paris
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