NIAMEY (Reuters) – Niger’s parliament passed a bill on Friday authorizing the redeployment to its territory of European special forces hitherto based in Mali to fight jihadist groups in the Sahel.
President Mohamed Bazoum gave his agreement in principle in February to the deployment of more European soldiers on his soil, after the announcement of their withdrawal from Mali due to the rapprochement between the junta in power in Bamako and Russia, but this initiative is not to the liking of all elected officials, some of whom reject Western influence.
Some 2,400 French soldiers from Operation Barkhane and 900 European special forces from the Takuba force are due to leave Mali in the coming months, Paris wishing to redeploy some of them to Niger or Gulf of Guinea countries such as Benin, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to continue the fight against jihadist groups.
The bill provides for a reinforcement of the European forces deployed along the border with Mali, whose intelligence activities and air support are essential to the Nigerien troops fighting on the ground.
The text was approved on March 4 by the Council of Ministers.
With the ruling party having a large majority of 135 seats out of 166, the law was passed without difficulty, but this should not calm the anger of part of the opposition and civil society who denounce the influence increase of foreign forces and particularly of France in its former colony.
In November, demonstrators blocked a French army convoy traveling from Côte d’Ivoire to Mali, causing incidents that left at least two people dead and more than a dozen injured.
(Boureima Balima and Moussa Aksar, French version Tangi Salaün and Sophie Louet)
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