Niger’s new junta accused France of planning a military intervention to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, as tensions escalated with the former colonial power and neighboring countries.
Niger’s new junta on Monday accused France of seeking to “intervene militarily” to reinstate deposed President Mohamed Bazoum as tension mounted with the former colonial power and neighbours.
France hit back in the evening with Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna denying the charges and adding it was still “possible” to restore Bazoum to power.
Bazoum, a western ally whose election just over two years ago marked Niger’s first peaceful transition of power since independence, was toppled on July 26 by the elite Presidential Guard.
Guards chief General Abdourahamane Tiani declared himself leader — but his claim has been shunned internationally and the West African bloc ECOWAS has given him a week to hand back power.
Bazoum’s PNDS party on Monday warned Niger risked becoming a “dictatorial and totalitarian regime” after a series of arrests.
On Monday morning, the oil minister and the mining minister were arrested, the party charged. The head of the PNDS’s national executive committee was also arrested.
The junta had previously arrested the interior minister, the transport minister and a former defence minister, the party said.
The putschists took aim at Paris on national television, saying, “In its search for ways and means to intervene militarily in Niger, France with the complicity of some Nigeriens, held a meeting with the chief of staff of the Nigerien National Guard to obtain the necessary political and military authorisation.”
“It’s wrong,” Colonna told France’s BFM news channel of the allegation, adding it was still “possible” to return the democratically-elected president to power.
“And it’s necessary because destabilisation is perilous for Niger and its neighbours,” she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday vowed “immediate and uncompromising” action if French citizens or interests were attacked after thousands rallied outside the French embassy in Niamey.
Some tried to enter the compound but were dispersed by tear gas.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
