The French foreign ministry announced on Saturday that France will assist ECOWAS’s attempts to undermine the military coup in Niger.
On Saturday, Niger Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou and the Niger ambassador met in Paris with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
Earlier, Colonna said the coup leaders in Niamey had until Sunday to hand back power, otherwise a threat by member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stage a military intervention had to be taken “very seriously”.
“The threat is credible,” she said on French public radio.
On Saturday, France did not provide explicit details regarding whether its support would involve military assistance for an ECOWAS intervention in Niger.
On the preceding Friday, ECOWAS announced that its military chiefs had reached an agreement on a potential intervention plan in Niger.
“All the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out,” ECOWAS commissioner Abdel-Fatau Musah said.
These included “the resources needed, and including the how and when we are going to deploy the force”, he added.
“We want diplomacy to work, and we want this message clearly transmitted to them [the junta] that we are giving them every opportunity to reverse what they have done,” Musah said.
The leaders of the coup have threatened to use force against you.
Mali and Burkina Faso, both under military leadership since 2020, have issued warnings that any regional intervention would be viewed as a “declaration of war” against them.
Russia, which has been expanding its presence in the Sahel region in recent times, expressed the belief that a foreign intervention would not lead to a resolution of the crisis.
In contrast, neighboring countries Benin and Germany advocated for continued diplomacy to de-escalate the situation.
On Friday, the United States announced the suspension of some aid to Niger in response to the coup.
Washington is pausing “certain foreign assistance programmes benefitting the government of Niger”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“As we have made clear since the outset of this situation, the provision of US assistance to the government of Niger depends on democratic governance and respect for constitutional order,” Blinken said, adding that Washington would continue to review its foreign assistance as the situation on the ground evolves.
Blinken did not specify what programmes would be affected but said life-saving humanitarian and food assistance, as well as diplomatic and security operations to protect US personnel, would continue.
“We remain committed to supporting the people of Niger to help them preserve their hard-earned democracy and we reiterate our call for the immediate restoration of Niger’s democratically-elected government,” Blinken said.