00:00 get you some more analysis on the current situation in Niger. Paul Melly is a
00:03 consulting fellow at the Africa program at Chatham House. Paul, thanks for
00:07 speaking to France 24 this afternoon. You would have heard us saying then
00:11 ECOWAS have scheduled a meeting to discuss the crisis further on Thursday.
00:16 It comes of course after Junta leaders have said no to several meetings, either
00:21 with ECOWAS, the African Union or the United Nations. Do they have any options
00:25 left at this stage, ECOWAS I mean? I think they do. First of all they can
00:32 further tighten the sanctions and Niger is a landlocked country. It's very
00:38 heavily dependent on imports that come in through coastal West African
00:42 countries, particularly Nigeria and Benin. And although Niger has borders with
00:48 countries that are not participating in the sanctions effort, such as Burkina
00:54 Faso and Mali, Algeria, Libya, those are much much more difficult and expensive
01:00 routes. And in the case of through the routes through Burkina and Mali, they're
01:04 routes which are very very insecure, subject to jihadist attack. Those roads
01:09 are often closed by violence. So the sanctions pressure really can be
01:14 ratcheted up. It's also, Niger is also a member of the CFA franc single currency
01:21 block, which means that the regional central bank in Dakar in Senegal is in a
01:27 position to impose really heavy financial penalties. It can really cause
01:33 problems for the banking system in Niger. So we could see further, as you say Paul,
01:38 we could see further financial sanctions put in place. We know that the President
01:43 of Nigeria had slapped more sanctions on Niger on Tuesday. Leading up to this
01:48 ultimatum that ECOWAS gave, there was a lot of talk about military
01:52 intervention. We're now hearing far more about diplomacy. Is that because the
01:59 impact of a military intervention is really sinking in both, you know, in
02:04 terms of the economy or, you know, the violence that this could ensue? I think
02:10 ECOWAS was always very very well aware of the difficulties of military
02:15 intervention. The bloc has had a long history of trying to manage the security
02:21 crises in West Africa. It's been discussing for many months the
02:25 development of a regional force to try and tackle those. So it's not as if
02:30 people in ECOWAS were naive or over assuming what could be achieved by a
02:37 military force. But I think, what I think we need to think of last Sunday's
02:42 deadline was, they set that as a moment when up to that point the
02:48 Putschists could have handed back power to the constitutional government, if you
02:52 like, without consequence. And at a moment when international support for ECOWAS
02:58 was at its very strongest, they signaled that they could include military action
03:04 among the options. But I think they will take time. They will really try and pace
03:10 what they're doing because there's a lot of reluctance, political reluctance,
03:15 within ECOWAS countries themselves to contemplate the use of force. Many
03:19 opposition politicians are raising questions about this. Many northern
03:23 Nigerian politicians are saying you really must exhaust all the negotiating
03:28 avenues. And there are signs that that pressure could tell. There have been
03:35 political analysts, Paul, that have suggested the longer that the junta
03:38 remains in charge of the country that you will, the more likely they are to
03:43 stay. And questions raised about ECOWAS' credibility. Do they look bad? Do they
03:49 lose credibility given the ongoing situation in the country? I don't think
03:55 they lose credibility. We have to be realistic about what is actually
03:59 possible. Just as, you know, with the Ukraine crisis, many people in Europe are
04:06 very sympathetic about Ukraine, but no one is suggesting that NATO should
04:10 actually send its forces into Ukraine to join that war. You know, you have to pace
04:15 things by the situation that you're in. And ECOWAS knows that a military
04:20 operation would be very difficult, even one that was very targeted, just trying
04:26 to target the leaders of the junta. Even that would be a really difficult move.
04:31 And there is a long tradition in West Africa of resolving crises through
04:37 negotiation and compromise. And the situation we're in at the moment, and this is
04:43 really important in terms of African public opinion, West African public
04:47 opinion, is that ECOWAS is signaling that it is ready to negotiate. It wants to
04:52 send envoys. But it's the junta that is refusing to talk to anybody. There will
04:58 be those, Paul, who say that, you know, resolving things diplomatically
05:03 hasn't worked in Burkina Faso, it hasn't worked in Mali, and that essentially
05:07 those countries could have set a precedent for what's going on in Niger.
05:12 That is true to some extent. Although Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, which is
05:18 also under a military government, they have all promised elections for next
05:22 year. But we know that that remains a sort of uncertain promise until it's
05:29 actually concretized with free and fair elections in which all candidates can
05:33 take part. We won't really know if the juntas in those countries have been
05:40 pushed into restoring democracy. The same would be true in Niger. And that's
05:45 why ECOWAS has felt that it needs to take a really strong line. But I think
05:51 it is also trying to be realistic. It's facing a real dilemma here,
05:57 because the risk, you know, West Africa was a region four years ago, it was all
06:02 elected constitutional governments. And now we have four countries that are
06:07 under military rule. So it's a difficult judgment to make. There's been a lot of talk,
06:13 Paul, about who will benefit ultimately from this military coup that's currently
06:19 happening in Niger. We had the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
06:23 speaking to our sister station this week. For him, diplomacy is the privileged
06:27 route, you might say. Russia and Wagner, as far as he's concerned, could, you know,
06:32 stand to gain from this. Your thoughts on that? Well, they could stand to gain
06:38 from it, because Russia is clearly trying to re-establish itself as an actor who
06:43 matters. And in one way of doing that is, as it were, to jump into situations that
06:50 arise when there are countries in crisis, and Russia then props up a military
06:57 regime, or in the case of the Central African Republic, a regime with a
07:01 controversial political situation, the sending of Wagner mercenaries and so on.
07:08 But from the Niger point of view, from the point of view of the Nigerien
07:13 junta, up to now, the Nigerien military have been relatively effective in
07:18 tackling jihadist violence. And the track record of Wagner in Mali is that, if
07:24 anything, that can make the situation worse if the mercenaries come in. And so,
07:29 while the Russians may spot an opportunity to move in, it's not
07:34 entirely clear that the Nigerien military, even those who staged the coup,
07:40 would find it terribly useful to bring in Russian mercenaries. And that
07:45 would also complicate the very close defense relationships they have with
07:50 parts in the US that, in the case of the Americans, go back a very, very long time.
07:55 And so disrupting those, or bringing a definitive end to those, would not...it
08:02 might be popular on the street, as we can see. There are some anti-French
08:06 demonstrations that have taken place in Niami. But in terms of, from the
08:10 point of view of the Niger army and its ability to fight the jihadists, trying to
08:15 change defense partners and disrupt all that could seriously weaken
08:20 its capacity. I mean, Paul, you raise an interesting point there, and it won't
08:23 have escaped anyone, the anti-French sentiment that we're seeing, certainly
08:28 in the capital, Niami, with protests. I mean, some 30,000 people in a stadium on
08:33 Sunday, you know, with that sentiment clear. What do you put that down to? And
08:38 do you think that France should have perhaps reduced its involvement in these
08:42 countries before we ended up here? I'm talking about Niger and Niger for this
08:46 particular instance. Well, I think we need to make a bit of a distinction
08:51 between the approach in, the French approach in Mali. They were asked to
08:57 intervene in 2013, of course, by the Malian government to fight the jihadists
09:02 and say, prevent a jihadist advance on Bamako. But over the subsequent years,
09:08 the French presence was pretty high profile, very visible. There was a lot of
09:12 media coverage, and quite a lot of West Africans were uncomfortable with that.
09:19 But in Niger, France has tried generally to take a much more discreet profile,
09:26 and there's been a strong emphasis on the fact that any operations where the
09:30 French troops were involved, they're actually operating at the behest of and
09:34 under the command of the Nigerien forces. They're not doing anything on their own.
09:40 And it's Niger that asked France to actually increase its military presence.
09:47 It's President Bazoun who said, please, can you deploy, redeploy some of the
09:53 soldiers who were in Mali, because we need to protect our borders against the
09:58 risk of jihadist overspill from Mali and Kinafasa. So it's quite a difficult
10:05 position for the French to pursue. They've tried to keep a relatively low
10:09 profile. If you go to Miami, when you arrive, you see the French base. But
10:16 afterwards, when you're just in Niger day to day, you could go for weeks without
10:21 seeing any evidence of French military presence, basically hardly any French
10:26 public presence at all. So how do we explain these images that we're seeing
10:29 with Nigerians asking for France to leave? How do we qualify that? Because
10:35 there's a widespread disenchantment right across West Africa, particularly
10:40 among young urban populations, are very fed up with the French regional presence.
10:47 And they've come to associate that with their own political elites. So we've
10:56 seen a situation where France, and in fact, the EU more widely, have been
11:01 trying to build a new partnership relationship, a more equal partnership
11:06 relationship, if you like, with the elected governments across Africa,
11:11 particularly West Africa. And yet, in many cases, those governments, the
11:15 political leaders, are suffering from quite a lot of popular disillusion at
11:21 home. There are very many people, young people, often big problems of
11:27 unemployment, underemployment, people living on very informal, fragile incomes,
11:32 a lot of frustration with their own political class. And that also feeds
11:38 through to resentment and resentment, even, for example, of the CFA franc
11:42 currency, because that currency is underpinned by a guarantee from France.
11:50 And yet, although governments are looking at possible options for
11:56 reforming the currency, obviously, that's a very difficult long-term
11:59 technical policy issue. It's not easily resolved. But the moon on the streets
12:05 often is one of frustration, the perception that France is still too
12:09 involved. And yet, there are practical security and economic challenges.
12:14 Okay, well, Paul, you've been unpacking some of the complex questions for us in
12:20 Niger amid this ongoing coup d'etat. Thanks very much for speaking to France24 today.
