APA-Niamey (Niger) – Following in the footsteps of their Malian counterparts in 2022, the new rulers of Niger have just renounced their military defense agreements with France.
They strongmen in Niamey have taken their tug-of-war with Paris to a new level. On the night of August 3-4, 2023, the National Committee for the Defense of the Fatherland (CNSP), the military junta in power since the coup that overthrew Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 have repudiated the military agreements and protocols with France.
Mali did it in May 2022 and Burkina Faso followed suit in March 2023.
According to Julien Antouly, a PhD candidate in international law at the Nanterre Center for International Law in France, this denunciation concerns five separate agreements corresponding to “different aspects of French cooperation and military intervention in Niger.”
According to the French researcher the technical cooperation agreement was signed on February 19, 1977, and was supposed to replace the defense agreement signed the day after Niger attained independence from France.
However, the accord was abrogated after the 1974 coup staged by Seyni Kountché against President Hamani Diori.
Antouly explained in a thread on Twitter that this agreement “frames military cooperation and does not concern operations”,
He said Article 8 organises the missions of the French forces, which “can under no circumstances be associated with the preparation or execution of war operations.”
“The CNSP also denounces two agreements signed in March and July 2013 concerning the intervention of French military personnel in Niger for the security of the Sahel,” the researcher added, pointing out that the content of these agreements, which legally frame the interventions of French forces, have never been published.
According to him, “one of them is a so-called SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement)” and is similar to the SOFAs in force in Mali and Burkina Faso as part of Operation Barkhane, until they were renounced by the Sahelian countries, which have distanced themselves from Paris while embracing new allies in Moscow.
The French expert explained that the agreement provides for the “freedom of movement of French forces” and regulates the “rules for the treatment of prisoners,” as well as granting French forces immunity from jurisdiction.
In their tug-of-war with Paris, which had already suspended its development aid and support for Niger’s budget following the coup, the new authorities in Niamey also denounced “a technical agreement signed in 2015.”
Noting that its content has not yet been made public either, the French PhD student added that “this is an agreement specifically concerning the conditions for the creation of the planned air base in Niamey,” which could be compared to a “nerve center for French air operations in the Sahel.”
Finally, “the CNSP has denounced the additional protocol, signed in 2020, defining the status of non-French troops in the Takuba force,” Antouly explained.
For him, the denunciation of this protocol “automatically entails the cancellation of specific agreements signed with other European states within the framework of Takuba.”
This task force did not survive the death of Barkhane, hence the need for Niger’s deputies to debate the military agreements in April, as Antouly pointed out.
He reminded us of the need to debate the military agreements in April, especially as it has been decided to redeploy part of the French forces in their country. In this context, a new declaration “accepted” by the elected representatives of Niger states, according to the French researcher, that “new establishments will be created closer to the theaters of operations”.
The same declaration added that these “bases and the rules of their operation will be the subject of specific agreements.”
To date, however, no new agreements have been signed between the two countries regarding the redeployment of the former Barkhane force in Niger.
On Friday, August 4, France reacted by recalling that “only the legitimate authorities of Niger” are in a position to terminate the defense agreements between Paris and Niamey.
AC/odl/lb/as/APA