The last members of the French armed forces mission deployed in Niger are expected to have left the African country within the day, a development that will seal Paris’ divorce with the new military regime in Niamey and mark the end of more than a decade of counter-jihadist operations. of the French army in the Sahel.

The withdrawal of about 1,500 French soldiers and airmen from Niger, of France’s last remaining ally in the Sahel until the generals seized power on July 26, follows the withdrawal of French armed forces from Mali and Burkina Faso: they were shown the exit door by military juntas hostile to the former colonial power.

After two months of bravado with the new authorities in Niamey, who denounced bilateral military cooperation agreements with Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron finally announced at the end of September that the French armed forces would withdraw from Niger “by the end of the year”.

The French ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, expelled by the regime, also left the country at the end of September after weeks of being locked up in the diplomatic mission.

France has decided to completely close its embassy in Nigeras there is no longer “the possibility of its smooth operation”, diplomatic sources said yesterday Thursday, a decision that seals the divorce of the two states.

The maneuver for the withdrawal of the French forces, which began in early October, it was logistically challenging, as it involved crossing 1,700 kilometers, including roads through deserts and swamps or areas infested by jihadists, to the Chadian capital of Djamena, home to the command of French forces in the Sahel.

According to Agence France-Presse sources familiar with the matter, some of the containerized material from Niger will be transported by land from Djamena to the port of Douala in Cameroon — a 1,500-kilometer route that also passes through extremely dangerous areas — in order to to be transported by sea to metropolitan France.

In Moscow

Most of the French troops on the ground in Niger were deployed at the air base in the capital Niamey. Other elements had been deployed, together with Nigerian forces, in two advanced bases in the zone of the so-called tri-border (with Mali and Burkina Faso), a refuge as well as a base for organizations that pledge allegiance either to al-Qaeda or to the Islamic State (IS). .

After the military coup in Niger that overthrew President-elect Mohammed Bazoum, who remains under house arrest, Nigerian generals have cut ties with the country’s Western partners; they are attempting a rapprochement with Russia.

They remain anyway on the territory of Niger military missions of the USA, Germany and Italy (the last two are noticeably smaller).

In early December, Niamey also announced that it was terminating both missions — political and military — of the European Union.

The USA and Germany they say they intend to hold talks with the Nigerians.

For months now, in the Sahel there is a resurgence of jihadist attacks and rebel organizations, with hundreds of dead.

Mali, Burkina Faso and now Niger, who formed an alliance against the jihadists, turned to Moscow for support.

In Mali, the withdrawal of French forces in 2022 left a bitter taste in Paris, as their bases in Menaka, Ghosi and Timbuktu were quickly taken over by mercenaries of the Russian private military company Wagner.

A total of 58 French soldiers have been killed in fighting in the Sahel since 2013, when Operation Serval was ordered by then-president Francois Hollande to help Mali’s government tackle armed Islamist groups.