PUNCH
France’s ambassador to Niger left the capital Niamey early Wednesday, after weeks of tensions between Paris and the post-coup regime in the West African country that demanded his expulsion.
“The ambassador and six colleagues left Niamey around 4:00 am (0300 GMT),” a diplomatic source from the French embassy said.A source in the Niger interior ministry confirmed the departure and said the plane was headed towards Chad.
It comes two months after a coup in Niger ousted its pro-Paris president and prompted a souring in relations between France and its former colony.
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a TV interview that France’s ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, would leave “in the next hours” but gave no details.
Niger’s military leaders — who overthrew the democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 — welcomed the announcement but said they were waiting for it to be followed up by official actions.
They had told Itte to leave the country after they overthrew Bazoum and took away the envoy’s diplomatic immunity and visa.
But a 48-hour ultimatum for him to go, issued in August, passed with him still in place, as the French government refused to comply or recognise the military regime as legitimate.
Paris had said that only Bazoum’s deposed government could order the envoy out.
Born in the Malian capital Bamako in 1959, Itte has been in the post of ambassador to Niger for a year.
His diplomatic career spans 35 years and he was previously ambassador to Uruguay and Angola.
Military pullout
Macron also announced in his Sunday TV interview that French troops would withdraw from Niger in “the months and weeks to come” with a full pullout “by the end of the year” — another demand of the Niger regime.
The French president, who had sought to make a special ally of Niger, said military cooperation was “over.”
France keeps about 1,500 soldiers in its former West African colony as part of an anti-jihadist deployment in the Sahel.
