We share the editorial of the newspaper Révolutionnaires, of the NPA of France, issued on August 7, 2023
On July 26, the elite corps of the presidential guard deposed former president Mohamed Bazoum. Today, from the side of the French government and its allies ruling neighboring West African countries, we hear the sound of boots on the ground, a threat of military intervention. For, even if the working people of Niger have nothing good to expect from the military coup, it upsets the interests of the former French colonial power. Like the recent overthrows of other governments compliant with Paris business interests, in Mali and Burkina Faso, this shift reveals much more of palace revolutions. However, the French government and groups such as Bouygues, Total or Orano (former Areva) want power at their feet.
A disastrous record
Niger with its 25 million inhabitants is a rich country populated by poor people. The mineral wealth is immense (including uranium) with 47% of its population living in absolute poverty, barely 11% having access to health services and 7% living in slavery. This is the result of the balance of development aid from Paris, the new name for France’s indirect domination of this former colony. On the one hand, there is dispossession, widespread corruption, looting (Orano, the French uranium mine operator, left twenty million tons of radioactive waste in the open). On the other hand, there is misery for the majority.
An unbearable presence
It is therefore not surprising that part of the population of the capital Niamey demonstrated for the departure of the French presence. For Macron and the French bosses, the emergency evacuation of about 500 French citizens, the request of the military junta for the departure of the 1,500 soldiers defending the tricolor flag multinationals opened an unprecedented crisis. After Mali and Burkina Faso, this third setback for the colonial ambitions of Private Macron calls into question the presence of the Paris capitalists and their plunder in this Sahel region.
Far from an anti-colonial revolution
It is true that the new junta reigning in Niamey has as its only program the end of the French military presence, a limited anti-colonialism which does not affect the interests of French companies and is silent on the presence of another military base, that of the United States. This group of officers, like those of Mali and Burkina Faso, tries to play on the rivalries between imperialist powers: between France, the United States and those who are already pointing their noses, Russia already on the military plane, China on the economic terrain. Putin, who held his “summit” in St. Petersburg with African countries, pledged his wheat reserves. So far, Africa has mainly seen its Wagner militias.
The dangers lurking for the exploited in Niger and the region
At the time of writing, we do not yet know whether the threats of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, and the military ultimatum of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led by Nigeria, which has just expired, will end in a military intervention, which will not be for democracy or respect for the constitution as Macron will say, but for uranium. But the press is already underlining the risks of this leading to a generalized war across the Sahel, with internal crises as illustrated by the parliamentary opposition in Nigeria against the intervention.
Therefore, all our solidarity goes to the poor populations, to the working people of the cities and the countryside of Niger and the region, who suffer from plunder and misery, from the clashes between local clans competing for power, but also and above all from military operations, directly or through interposed African troops, of the great predatory powers of Africa. France, in the lead. They have nothing to expect from the leaders or military chiefs who proclaim themselves “saviors of the nation”. It is the unity of the workers on the scale of the continent that will be able to open a way out of domination and build another future. We share their revolt against the colonial plunder that continues, and above all the domination of French imperialism and its bosses over an entire part of the African continent.
- French troops out of Africa!
- No to military intervention!