(Corrects the name of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum)
NIAMEY, April 22 (Reuters) – Niger’s parliament debated on Friday a bill authorizing the redeployment on its territory of European special forces hitherto based in Mali to fight against 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 submitted to the Nigerien Parliament 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, said a party elected official in power, Daouda Mamadou, before the debate.
The text, approved on March 4 in the Council of Ministers, should be put to the vote by the end of the day.
As the ruling party has a large majority of 135 seats out of 166, the law should be 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.
“Sahelian states are capable of putting in place their own security mechanisms,” said civil society figure Abdoulaye Seydou, who said passing the law would violate Niger’s sovereignty. (Boureima Balima and Moussa Aksar, French version Tangi Salaün)