In today’s edition, we try to give you a perspective on why the explosive situation in Niger risks compromising not only the stability of the Sahel region but also the diplomatic ties in Europe and beyond. We hope you will find it interesting!

Inside Niger’s Gunpowder: The Clash of Diplomacies

After hours of mediation behind closed doors with the leader of the coup plotters, Abdourahamane Tchiani, the Nigerian clerics returning from Niamey had finally expressed confidence in the general’s good intentions. They had confided that the willingness to explore the path of diplomacy had ultimately emerged.

What happened then, immediately after the meeting, when the spokesman of the military junta appeared on state TV to pronounce words that were likely to be the final nail in the coffin of any possible understanding?

The declared intention to put Mohamed Bazoum on trial for ‘high treason’ is nothing more than this: a slap in the face for the doves chasing the option of military intervention for weeks.

The most optimistic imaginatively see in it the preconditions for an agreement: ‘The coup plotters’, so goes the line of reasoning, ‘raise the stakes now and then give us some results’.

But it is precisely in the light of this entangled and tense scenario, with the life of a head of state at stake – continuously threatened with death by his torturers – that the response to the coup plotters will now have to be assessed in the coming days and weeks. Even more so since the rift has deepened within a Western bloc that, to be honest, since the beginning of the crisis in Niger, has not been as granitic as one would have hoped.

France, for example, has made it clear from the outset that it is ready to support military action by ECOWAS on one condition: that it is first the Economic Community of West African States that opts for the use of force so that it does not appear that only Paris oversees an operation that could inflame the entire Sahel region.

To confirm this, on Tuesday, Algeria apparently formally denied its airspace to the French air force in the event of a military intervention in Niger. True or not, it is not a secret that France has lost much of its influence in the former colonies.

And this is precisely the dilemma experienced at the Elysée in recent days. On the one hand, Emmanuel Macron’s desire to keep his word to Mohamed Bazoum: to do everything to save his life and reinstate him as the head of the country. On the other, the awareness that he is currently isolated in the West. What is missing is, first and foremost, the green light from the United States of America, less concerned about the constitutional order in the country and more about their interests in the region.

This is how Paris is insisting on convincing the Allies that, even now, Niger is no longer the pillar of Western security on the African continent that it was until one month ago. Proof of this is the numerous attacks on embassies recorded in recent days in the country and states led by military juntas such as Mali. The warning is that it will not be long before terrorists trained in Africa, adequately indoctrinated with anti-Western propaganda, end up reaching the other side of the Mediterranean and striking at our civilisation.

This concern should also touch Italy, at least according to Paris, which is irritated by the fact that Rome, instead, is only preoccupied with the consequences that an intervention would have on the migration front. At the Elysée Palace, the suspicion has arisen that the Meloni government is tempted to recognise the Niger coup plotters as legitimate interlocutors. In this sense, Italian Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto’s tweet a few days ago did not go unnoticed: he reported on the meetings between the Italian military contingent and some leading elements of the coup military junta, with the latter referred to, however, by the ‘official’ acronym of NCPH, i.e. the National Council for the Protection of the Homeland devised by the insurgents. According to Paris, Meloni intends to follow the United States diplomacy to regain lost influence on the African continent.

The not-so-hidden purpose of this strategy would be the following: saving the life of President Bazoum, his wife Aziza and his son Salem and obtaining their release by the coup plotters but offering in exchange the suspension of sanctions and a – albeit nuanced – form of formal recognition. A solution that would not displease the Americans determined, first, not to see the large military base in Agadez dismantled. If necessary, even accepting a downward compromise. ECOWAS (and Macron) permitting.