The French withdrawal from Niger on the menu of exchanges between Déby and Macron

2023-10-20 07:00:00

All regional issues, including Sudan, Libya and Niger, as well as the return to France of our military assets, were at the heart of the discussions between French President Emmanuel Macron and that of the transition in Chad, Mahamat Idriss Déby. According to the Élysée, “the meeting also allowed the two presidents to discuss the continuation of the political transition in Chad.”

The departure of the French from Niger

Forced to leave Niger after a putsch in July, the French army had to evacuate 1,400 men and their equipment, mainly via Chad. The soldiers will fly to France from N’Djamena while the convoys of equipment will reach the port of Douala, in Cameroon, crossing areas sheltering jihadist groups. French President Emmanuel Macron declared at the end of September that French troops will have left Niger “by the end of the year”. However, experts envisage a duration of around six months due to the logistical challenges posed by this withdrawal, with the equivalent of 2,000 containers to be repatriated.

The situation in Sudan and Libya but also in Chad

In Sudan, war broke out on April 15 between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo. Libya, for its part, has been in the grip of a major political crisis since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, undermined by divisions between East and West and by foreign interference.

As far as Chad is concerned, everything is far from being resolved. Indeed, 18 months after the death of Idriss Déby, in October 2022, Mahamat Idriss Déby, who became head of the transition, extended it for two years, invoking the decision of a national reconciliation dialogue boycotted by the vast majority of the opposition and the most powerful armed rebel groups. We are far from what was announced on April 20, 2021 immediately after the death of President Idriss Déby Itno killed at the front by rebels after having ruled Chad for 30 years with an iron fist. That day, a junta of fifteen generals proclaimed its young son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, president for a transition period of eighteen months before elections. We seem far from the mark.