Reports indicate that after being asked to leave Niger by the country’s new junta, France concluded its military departure on Friday.
This marked the end of years of military cooperation on the ground and alarmed observers about a potential rift in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa.
The French Army General Staff sent an email to The Associated Press stating that the final French military planes and soldiers left Niger by the deadline of December 22, which was set by the junta that broke off relations with Paris following the coup in July. The French government had already declared this week that it would close its Niger diplomatic post for “an indefinite period.”
President Emmanuel Macron stated on Thursday during a visit to a base in Jordan that the nation would still be involved in the Sahel, the large region south of the Sahara Desert that has been a hotbed of violent extremism, but in a different way.
“I decided on some important reconfigurations,” Macron said. “We will continue to protect our interests over there, but our armies won’t be as present permanently, will be less stationary and also less exposed,” he said.
Niger’s junta described the end of the military cooperation with France as the start of “a new era” for Nigeriens.
“Niger stands tall, and the security of our homeland will no longer depend on a foreign presence,” it said via X, formerly known as Twitter. “We are determined to meet the challenges before us, by consolidating our national military and strategic capabilities.”
However, experts claim that the withdrawal of the troops will leave a void. According to Ryan Cummings, director of Africa-focused security consulting firm Signal Risk, it will “leave Niger and the entire Sahel worse off” in terms of overall counterterrorism efforts because Niger was considered the last standing Western ally in the ten-year struggle against jihadi groups in the area.
With anti-French sentiment growing in Burkina Faso and Mali, both of which are ruled by juntas that have also forced French forces out, 1,500 French troops were providing training and support to the local military in Niger. This was supposed to serve as the base for counterterrorism operations in the region.
