Niger debacle

France’s Niger debacle marks end of an era in Africa

Calls grow for Paris to rethink its relationship with African nations, including a military reduction in the restive region.

BY LAURA KAYALI AND CLEA CAULCUTT

France’s days as a military power in Africa are numbered.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to withdraw from Niger signals the end of an era for France — one marked by military interventions in the West African Sahel region, and a sense in Paris that its former colonies in Africa were still in some way France’s private preserve. 

For more than two months, Macron took a defiant stance, ignoring the ultimatum set by the junta in Niger, who came to power in July after a military coup. France refused to engage with the junta leaders or move on their demands to remove French troops stationed in the country to fight terrorism.

But in the face-off between France and the putschists, Paris blinked first. 

On Sunday, Macron announced that France would gradually withdraw its 1,500 soldiers by the end of the year and that France’s ambassador, who had been living under quasi house arrest in the capital Niamey, would be brought home. The ambassador, Sylvain Itté, returned home Wednesday with six of his colleagues.

The repercussions of this decision, which comes in the wake of forced withdrawals from neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, are being felt far and wide. It’s the latest blow in a series of setbacks for Paris in the region, where France’s influence has waned significantly — replaced in some cases by Russia — in a context where former colonies are seeking to diversify their partnerships. 

The key questions now are where the soldiers stationed in Niger will go, what Paris will do with the military bases it still has left in Africa and how it will continue the fight against Islamist terrorism in the region. The ouster from Niger has triggered calls among observers and even within French diplomatic circles for France to truly overhaul how it engages with African nations, including by reducing its military footprint on the continent as a whole.

“The deep trend confirms itself: our military presence is no longer accepted. We need to totally rethink our relationship to Africa,” said a former French diplomat, who like other officials quoted here, was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “We have been kicked out of Africa, we need to depart from other countries before we get told to go,” the former diplomat added. 

Walk the talk

In February, Macron promised France would commit to a new type of military relationship with African nations — one that wouldn’t be tainted with neo-colonialist undertones, but rather be a partnership of equals. Aiming for a reset in the region, Macron announced a fundamental overhaul of France’s Africa strategy where it would fight terrorism alongside local governments.

There are about 6,700 French soldiers reportedly still deployed on the African continent, including in Chad, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gabon. In the Sahel region, Paris has repeatedly explained that French armed forces were present at the request of governments seeking to contain a jihadist insurgency. 

However, the ease with which military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — as well as hostile powers such as Russia — have fueled and inflamed anti-French sentiment shows there’s a different perception among local populations, according to Pierre Haroche, lecturer in international relations and international security at the Queen Mary University of London. 

“The French presence has become very counterproductive, France with all the goodwill in the world can’t do much with the population and the armies against them,” he said. “If France is to retain a presence, it must be as invisible as possible, probably through the EU.” 

“It’s the end of a model in which France is seen as Africa’s policeman,” Haroche added. 

Despite Macron’s stated reset of relations with African nations, some officials argue the French armed forces and network of diplomats have been slow to change their ways.

“We need to pull our military bases. But there are internal issues, how to make [the withdrawals] acceptable to our armed forces. It means we will no longer have a fighting army,” said a former French official. Indeed, unlike French soldiers stationed on Europe’s Eastern flank, whose main missions are surveillance and training, troops in the Sahel are engaged in combat operations. 

The French president’s office declined to comment for this article.

Global influence challenged

For the French political elite, the Sahel debacle strikes a sensitive chord, feeding fears that France might be losing its status as a global power. 

The debate has been so acute that Macron promised opposition parties there would be a public debate with lawmakers on France’s policy in the Sahel, which could take place as early as November.  

“There’s this feeling on the French side that the military presence [in the Sahel region] was one of the last symbols of France’s hard power and, in particular, of the country’s self-perception as a great world power,” said Djenabou Cisse, a researcher for the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. 

Paris will need to come to terms, at least in the short term, that it will have less control over what’s happening in the Sahel region — including when it comes to fighting terrorism — and re-engage with African governments throughout the continent in a new, less militarized way, Cisse said.

Redeploying French forces from Niger to Chad or even Ivory Coast would amount to kicking the can down the road, the researcher noted. 

“For France, it’s about mourning and giving up a part of its history to enter a new chapter,” she said.