France will end its military presence in Niger by the end of 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, marking the latest major development amid high tensions between the two countries since a military junta seized control of Niger in July. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are putting an end to our military cooperation with the de facto authorities of Niger because they don\u2019t want to fight terrorism anymore,\u201d Macron said regarding the military leaders who took over rule of the northwest African country. <\/p>\n
France has not recognized Niger\u2019s military authorities and insists that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in the coup, remains the country\u2019s only legitimate authority. <\/p>\n
The decision to end the \u201ccooperation\u201d is \u201cbecause we are not there to deal with internal politics and be hostages of putschists,\u201d Macron said, referring to the military group. <\/p>\n
The withdrawal will be organized in the coming weeks, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey will come back in an orderly manner in the weeks and months to come, and for that, we will coordinate with the putschists because we want this to happen calmly,\u201d Macron said. <\/p>\n
Niger\u2019s ruling military power said it welcomes France\u2019s decision to pull its troops from the country, according to a statement posted to Niger\u2019s state television, Tele Sahel. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis Sunday, we celebrate another step towards Niger\u2019s sovereignty. French troops and the French ambassador will be leaving Niger by the end of the year,\u201d the statement said. \u201cImperialist and neo-colonialist forces are no longer welcome on our national territory.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAny person, institution or structure whose presence threatens the interests and outlook of our country will have to leave the land of our ancestors, whether they like it or not,\u201d it added. \u201cOur resistance will be unwavering, and will deal with any institution or structure attempting to challenge the higher interests of our nation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some 1,500 troops remain. <\/p>\n
Responding to a question on the withdrawal\u2019s timeline, <\/strong>Macron said there will not be any French soldiers in Niger by the end of 2023. <\/p>\n The French president also said he has decided to bring back the country\u2019s ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, to France. <\/p>\n \u201cFrance has decided to bring back its ambassador,\u201d Macron said. \u201cIn the coming hours, our ambassador along with several diplomats will return to France.\u201d <\/p>\n That announcement comes just over a week after Macron said the ambassador was \u201cliterally being held hostage at the French embassy,\u201d and that \u201cfood was prevented from being delivered\u201d to the embassy in Niamey, the capital. <\/p>\n After their July coup, the military junta ordered Itte to leave the country, and it later revoked his visa and instructed police to expel him. <\/p>\n But the diplomat remained in place, according to the French presidency, and French authorities reiterated they did not recognize the junta\u2019s authority. <\/p>\n Itte was still working, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said earlier this month, adding he \u201cwill stay as long as we want him to stay\u201d and that the official\u2019s return was Macron\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n\n France will end its military presence in Niger by the end of 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, marking the latest major development amid high tensions between the two countries since a military junta seized control of Niger in July. \u201cWe are putting an end to our military cooperation with the de facto authorities <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} French ambassador will also return<\/h2>\n