France warned on Sunday that it will not tolerate any attack on its interests after pro-junta supporters in Niger stoned its embassy, burned French flags and chanted anti-French slogans in a protest organised by the new military leaders.
Niger’s military junta is seeking to shore up support ahead of an emergency summit of West African heads of state in Nigeria where they will decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order following a coup.
The military coup in Niger has been widely condemned by neighbours and international partners including the United States, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and former colonial power France.
They have all refused to recognise the new leaders and have demanded that President Mohamed Bazoum be restored to power.
Heads of state of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union, could suspend Niger from its institutions, cut off the country from the regional central bank and financial market, and close borders.
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2 billion a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank. It is also a security partner of former colonial power France and the United States, which both use it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.
The West African leaders could for the first time, consider a military intervention to restore Bazoum who was ousted when General Abdourahamane Tiani was declared new head of state on Friday.
Ahead of the Sunday summit, the military leaders in Niger on Saturday night warned in a statement read on Niger national television against any military intervention.
“The objective of the (ECOWAS) meeting is to approve a plan of aggression against Niger through an imminent military intervention in Niamey in collaboration with other African countries that are non-members of ECOWAS, and certain Western countries,” junta spokesperson Colonel Amadou Abdramane said.
Source: reuters.com
