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Niger coup supporters rally after French ambassador ordered out

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Niamey Saturday in support of last month's coup, a day after the country's new military rulers gave France's ambassador to Niger 48 hours to leave the country.

Published: 27 August 2023 12:40 CEST
Niger coup supporters rally after French ambassador ordered out
Supporters of Niger's National Council for Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) gather at the general Seyni Kountche stadium in Niamey. Photo: AFP.

The Seyni Kountche stadium, the largest in Niger with a capacity of 30,000 seats, was two-thirds full and the sound of vuvuzelas rang out, AFP journalists noted.

The flags of Niger, Algeria, and Russia dotted the stands, while acrobats painted in Niger’s national colours put on a show in the centre of the pitch.

“We have the right to choose the partners we want,” said Ramatou Ibrahim Boubacar, wearing Nigerien flags from head to toe. “France must respect this choice.

“For sixty years, we have never been independent, only since the day of the coup d’etat,” she said.

Boubacar added that the country fully supported the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), which seized power after overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum’s government on July 26.

The CNSP is led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, who has made former colonial power France its new target.

“The fight will not stop until the day there are no longer any French soldiers in Niger,” CNSP member Colonel Obro Amadou told the stadium crowd on Saturday.

“It’s you who are going to drive them out,” he said.

‘Ready to fight’

On Friday, Niger’s foreign ministry announced that French ambassador Sylvain Itte had 48 hours to leave, claiming he refused to meet with the new rulers and citing French government actions that were “contrary to the interests of Niger”.

Paris has since rejected the demand, saying that “the putschists do not have the authority to make this request.”

“The French ambassador, instead of leaving, thinks this is the land of his parents,” said Idrissa Halidou, a healthcare worker and CNSP member who was attending Saturday’s rally.

“We are people of war, we are ready to fight against” the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), he added.

The West African bloc has applied sanctions against the new regime and threatened to use military means to remove it if the new rulers do not hand back power to Bazoum.

Efforts to find a diplomatic solution are continuing, however, with Molly Phee, the top US diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, visiting Nigeria to meet ECOWAS officials.

They met in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, which holds the ECOWAS presidency. The US State Department said Phee was also consulting senior officials in Benin, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo — fellow members of the ECOWAS regional bloc.

The new rulers in Niamey accuse ECOWAS of being in France’s pocket.

France has 1,500 soldiers based in Niger who had been helping Bazoum in the fight against jihadist forces that have been active in the country for years.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Published: 25 June 2024 08:37 CEST
Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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