How does the French Ambassador see the Niger coup? New Insights
After being trapped for about two months and returning to his country, the French Ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itté, revealed new insights into the July coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum from power by the military.
Itté described his experience since the coup on July 26th last year as, “I was tired of the extreme tension and weeks of isolation inside the French embassy in Niamey,” considering what he went through as an attempt to “break him.” Itté, who returned to Paris last Wednesday, spoke in statements to “TF1” when he said, “The coup is a big chaos with only losers in it.”
He added, “This coup is first and foremost a Nigerien internal issue between a president who decided to fight corruption and a number of generals who do not want this battle against corruption to reach its end.”
Itté revealed that Nigerien companies that supplied the embassy with provisions were “pressured and even threatened” by the new authorities, leading them to stop performing their duties. He said, “It’s very clear that the goal was to break me and thus expel me.”
Despite expressing his exhaustion, Itté affirmed his readiness “to continue his mission.”
At the end of last August, the Nigerien army decided to expel the French ambassador from the country once he left his embassy, but Paris refused to comply with this order, claiming that it “only recognizes the legitimate government led by President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted by the coup.”
Last Sunday, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, decided to return his country’s ambassador to Paris and withdraw 1,500 French soldiers deployed in Niger by the end of the year.
