Decay of an empire
An analysis by Serhey Bohdan

ANALYTICS  08 August 2023 - 15:32

The ultimatum issued to another African country against French neo-colonialism has run out of time last Sunday. The Niger military was ordered to return control to the pro-French president by the regional integration bloc, which, in reality – is France. Not only does President Macron not renounce his imperialist legacy, he is trying to expand France’s sphere of influence to the Caucasus.

French positions have, however, been undermined over the past years in Paris’s most important region, the former African colonies. After the overthrow of the unpopular pro-French president in Niger, Paris decided to save its empire and, to this end, blamed the Kremlin. The French leadership is thus seeking the support of the international community to intervene in Niger. In fact, Putin’s intrigues have nothing to do with it. Paris itself has undermined its position in Africa by its predatory treatment of the continent’s states.

Backstreet brawls moving to the global stage

It all started when the President of the Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, planned to remove the commander of the Presidential Guard, General Abdul Rahman Chiani a couple of weeks ago. The general responded by himself ousting the president on July 26. Several statements from the new leaders of Niger paired with Russian flags at demonstrations were enough for the world media to start searching for traces of the “Wagner” private military company.

In fact, the coup could have ended as yet another struggle for power. The deposed president was initially a weak political figure. The thing is, he was never popular. Moreover, he remained a marginal figure because of his origins from the Arab minority, since Niger society was still based on tribal structures. How did Bazoum become president? His origins have helped him: the tiny tribe to which he belonged was traditionally known for its collaboration with the French authorities. Bazoum was considered one of the hounds of the previous regime. Even NGOs - mainly pro-American ones, fed by the United States against their rivals within the West itself - accused him of “authoritarian excesses”. Today, Bazoum is painted by every Western media outlet as a popular advocate of democracy, but that’s just hypocrisy.

Following a protest in front of the French embassy, President of France Macron did not hesitate to make arrogant threats, saying that the Elysian Palace “will not tolerate any attempt on France and its interests”. The current strong reaction of Paris to events in Niger is also linked to the fact that it is the main base for France’s military presence in West Africa. Previously, Mali formed such a base, but ever since the military came to power there (which is also said to be “pro-Russian”), the French have lost it. Losing Niger means getting thrown out of the region. Moreover, a dangerous precedent will be set - Western troops will be thrown out by the will of the local, African people. Macron cannot tolerate this.

It is not surprising that on August 3, the pro-French President Bazoum, who is sitting in the jails of the “pro-Russian junta”, allegedly spoke to the American “Washington Post”. He called on Western friends to help him regain power, otherwise, he says, the putschists will give all the Sahara to Prigozhin and Putin. As noted in the article, the military authorities of Niger and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali want to replace French and American forces with Russian ones. Let us clarify that the replacement does really carry equal weight: if this happens, mercenaries from Wagner will replace mercenaries from the French “Foreign Legion”.

As a result, the internal and so-far bloodless dispute of Niger was first and foremost addressed by French leaders who want to solve their problems in Africa by reformatting the conflict into a fragment of the global battle with Putin. The Russian side reciprocated, deciding to play on the fears of the West and Niger started rolling closer to a war. On August 4, the French radio announced that it was prepared to invade Niger, allegedly by French regional allies. In response, the Niger military denounced all military agreements with Paris.

Bitter fruits of the French “civilization”

When evaluating Paris' response to these measures taken by the African country, one should bear in mind that France’s wealth and influence were built on the plundering and oppression of Africans. Charles de Gaulle taught that “French world power and French power in Africa were inextricably linked and mutually confirming”. Forced in the 1960s to proclaim the independence of the African colonies, de Gaulle and his successors immediately consolidated French control over the formally independent countries by every possible means, from economic enslavement to a network of military bases. Otherwise, French influence on the continent would have been blown to smithereens. After all, French rule did not bring anything good to the Africans. The French didn’t come to a wild, empty place. Thanks to the trans-Saharan trade, the Niger achieved considerable development in the pre-colonial era and was part of the Songhay state, the largest African empire. Later, this country became the furthest point until where the Ottoman rule spread - even before the French conquest.

So European colonialism, especially French colonialism, really did a remarkable job of robbing the country. Niger today is one of the poorest countries in the world. In terms of GDP per capita ($1,443), it ranks 144th in the world. The literacy rate is 37%. White gentlemen like to point out to the Niger citizens that their country receives up to $2 billion of developmental assistance, and the EU (that is, France) in 2022-2024 promised to give as much as €503 million.

This is a pitiful handout compared to what that the French are accustomed to squeezing out of Niger. After all, this country has the richest reserves of uranium and oil, and in the case of uranium, these are not just deposits, but well-explored and exploited reserves. It is from Niger that French and EU corporations have been supplying uranium throughout the history of independent Niger. Nuclear power provides about 70% of France’s energy needs. Add to that Paris’s nuclear arsenal. Uranium was being shipped to other Western countries too with French business earning fabulous profits.

Much the same happened in other former colonies of Paris, such as oil-rich Gabon. Paris kept Omar Bongo for half a century in power, who supplied France with cheap fuel by robbing his people, without forgetting to feed French politicians. Bongo once proudly said, that “France without Gabon is like a car without fuel”, all the while his country was setting records in child mortality and was not even capable if building a road network.

In other words, the French have squandered resources from both the Niger and other African countries. And before we listen to the racist ramblings about the inability of Africans (and other non-European peoples) to build a successful state against the backdrop of irreplaceable Western civilization, let’s remember how much uranium was smuggled out of the Niger for paying mere pennies?

It was this robbery, causing the people to live under animalistic conditions and the disorder in the state bodies that contributed to the spread of extremist movements in the Niger - from the Islamic State to Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. However, they played into the hands of the neo-colonial superpowers, creating a pretext for the introduction of foreign contingents that took control of the entire region. Evil tongues tell many grudges about how they fought terrorism. Of course, nobody was in a hurry to investigate possible violations, but when it came to the investigation, terrible things came to light. For example, in January 2021, a French helicopter shot up a wedding. Even according to the United Nations, at least 22 people were killed, 19 of whom are known to have been civilians, including children. Despite clear evidence of the Western military massacre, French officials said they know nothing about it.

In any case, the presence of French and allied military contingents in the region not only kept the danger of extremist movements at risk, but the scale of the problem grew in a surprising manner. The first operation in 2013/2014 called “Serval” ended in such a “success” that the next operation “Barkhan” in 2014-2022 had to be deployed already to the whole region. The extremists have not diminished.

Democratic “kickbacks”

You cannot blame the Niger’s problems on the incompetence and corruption of local leaders. The fact is that from the moment of independence until the last coup, they were ruled exclusively by their friends or even the protectors of Paris. Since 1960, Nigerians have survived five constitutions, three military dictatorships, and since 2010 have been almost a model regime, creating a democratic prop in the form of a multiparty state. Yet the French control remained. Nobody else ruled them, not even for a day - not the pro-Soviet communists, not the Islamists, not the local nationalists – nobody onto whom the blame for the current mess could be put.

All this followed the principle of greed: French politicians did not forget about their own pocket, neither when it comes to Niger nor the general African politics. African leaders were paying the powerful masters in Paris with favourable deals, gifts or simply “kickbacks” from the received French “aid” in exchange for their support. The official Paris describes this as an ”intersection between financial interests and transactions beneficial to all the parties involved”.

The degree of corruption among even France’s top leadership in recent years is striking. Of the last three French presidents, two – namely Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy - were convicted of corruption with Sarkozy even being sentenced to prison. Those are, by the way, only for the “minor” charges – an “African court procedure” is still awaiting this former French leader. It will examine evidence that Sarkozy had in due course promised certain services to Muammar Gaddafi. In return, Gaddafi gave Sarkozy millions of euros to run for president in France. Aware of the risk of exposure, Sarkozy rushed to kill Gaddafi at the first opportunity, leading an invasion of Libya under the howling of Western media on the “corrupt dictator” Gaddafi.

And times haven’t changed in Paris. From the outside President Macron has abandoned the colonial legacy and corrupt neo-colonialism, is talking about “partnership”. It is, however, difficult to believe him - during the Niger crisis he behaved following the traditional fashion of French imperialism. Let’s just say Macron has Sarkozy as his advisor, and even now, as the former criminal president is being accompanied to courts with an electronic monitor around his ankle, Macron is continuing to consult him.

In short, the anger of Parisian politicians over the possible loss of power in Niger is real and genuine. Democracy or human rights have nothing to do with it. They are about to lose not only what they “patriotically” considered to be forever French, they’ll have their personal meal ticket taken away. After all, to paraphrase an expression from a famous film, in this regard, the French elites have been for a long time “confusing their own skin with that of the state”. Additionally to that, France’s fellow Western and African allies are now also unhappy - why did Paris not look after the country, that he was supposed to control in the interest of the entire collective West?

On the brink of an African war

Having previously made peace with the overthrow of the pro-French authorities of Burkina Faso and Mali, Macron realized that it was now necessary to save the empire, preferably under plausible pretexts. To that end, Paris has tried to pass off what is happening in Niger as intrigues by the Kremlin, but all this was to no avail. Even mainstream commentators like influential French journalist Nabila Ramdani refused to describe the situation according to this view, pointing to the opposite, namely that “the Niger crisis shows that the quasi-empire of France in Africa is finally falling apart”.

The tale of a Russian expansion does not stand up to the facts. Speaking of it, the French authorities like to complain about the presence of the paramilitary Wagner group in 16 countries in Africa. Yes, in return for their security services, Prigozhin’s company is given permission to extract and trade highly liquid minerals in these countries. This is perhaps the only difference from the practice of French neo-colonialism, yet it is more important for us to understand that the Russian influence on the continent is actually ending right there. Yes, Russia recently held an impressive summit with African leaders. At the same time, however, Russia’s trade with Africa fell to $10 billion last year. Even during the waning days of the pandemic, a couple of years ago, it was higher, at $18 billion. Moreover, most of this trade was only with three Arab countries in the north of the continent.

For comparison, Türkiye’s trade with Africa was three times higher than that of Russia last year, and that of China even twenty times higher! Therefore the French are worried that Africans, by driving out their old oppressors, are now looking not only towards Russia, but also China and Türkiye. In other words, following the expansion of Türkiye ’s influence in the Arab world due to the “Arab Spring”, Ankara can now expand its presence in Africa.

Either of these options is unacceptable to Paris and it will certainly try to re-establish its presence in the Niger, even if that means pushing back and giving some of the country’s wealth to the current global hegemon, the USA. The only way to restore the status-quo is through military action. The French and Americans will not be able to portray a “maidan” or popular uprising against the military government because of the lack of widespread support from the deposed Niger leadership.

At first glance, it seems that the West could easily return the power to its people. Recently, the French refused to withdraw their troops from Niger, currently 1,500 French soldiers and an unknown number of Air Force personnel are stationed there. It also turned out that there were 1,000 American soldiers deployed at the French Air Force Base, who had been sent there to look after strategic uranium mines, without a former arrangement in order to bypass Congress. The armed forces of the Niger, however, only count 12,900 soldiers, of whom only 6,000 are army personnel.

In other words, the West could handle the restoration of French control in the Niger, but to make the massacre look less heinous, the involvement of regional allies is expected, basically meaning the French will, most likely, play the scenario of a hybrid military operation using their “polite green men”. And the politicians and some symbolic force of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will be in front of the cameras to provide cover. In reality, ECOWAS does not have the capacity to invade the Niger: some of its countries oppose an intervention, some remain neutral, and Senegal and Nigeria together won’t be able to handle such an operation alone.

The upcoming Western intervention is fraught with war, however. The neighbours of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, have already warned that they will view the attack on that country as a war against themselves and will support the new leaders of Niger. In addition, the Wagner military company is deployed in both of those countries.

So let’s summarize. Before our eyes, the Russian-Ukrainian war is not only growing in scale, capturing the central Russian regions and the Black Sea but continues to cling to an ugly clump of other conflicts, even far from Eastern Europe. The US began to clearly view the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as interconnected with China’s attempts to close the secession of its former province, Taiwan. Within a few days, the mediocre Niamey debacle was turned into a continuation of the collective West’s opposition to its Russian and Chinese opponents. The global players intend to settle their relations primarily through the blood and grief of Africans.

In the meantime, no matter how much is said about the confrontation between the West and Russia in Africa, the main factor behind current events remains the collapse of the monstrous system of French neo-colonialism, with something similar happening to other superpowers in other regions. Seeing as there is not enough power left to oppress and steal from the people, France and other world players rushed to build up armies and join forces. Macron recently signed a record military budget that foresees a gigantic €413 billion increase in war spending over the next seven years. Everything is justified by references to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but even analysis of the situation with Niger shows that simply everything is being written off under the disguise of the Russian-Ukrainian war

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