Amadou Ibro, chef d'état-major particulier du général Tiani : "On va entrer en guerre avec la France"
Niger regularly accuses France of wanting to destabilize it and the head of the junta, General Aboudrahamane Tiani, even directly designated French President Emmanuel Macron as "the sponsor" of the Islamic State jihadists who attacked Niamey's international airport at the end of January.
Paris, whose soldiers involved in the anti-jihadist fight left Niger at the end of 2023 after a long diplomatic standoff with the junta, has always denied any intention of destabilizing the country.
During a meeting on Wednesday, in front of young people in a stadium in Niamey, General Amadou Ibro, chief of staff to General Tiani, said that France was going to "wage war on Niger" because, according to him, it was his country that was at the origin of "the bad situation" economic in France.
"This mobilization has been made, it has been decreed so that we can prepare for war with France," he declared in French.
"Know this, we are going to war with France, we were not at war, now we are going to war with France," he added to applause from the audience and shouts of "Down with France."
The video was widely shared on social media Thursday morning.
"There is no question of French intervention in Niger," denied the spokesman for the French Armed Forces General Staff, Colonel Guillaume Vernet, believing that it was "clearly an information war" on the part of Niger.
Niger has severed relations with Paris since the 2023 coup and the junta claims a policy of sovereignty, particularly over its raw materials, accusing the former colonial power of having plundered its wealth.
In this capacity, it nationalized Somaïr, a subsidiary of the French uranium giant Orano, which in turn initiated several legal proceedings.
Niger, which plans to sue Orano in turn for alleged environmental damage, announced at the end of 2025 its intention to put the uranium it produces on the international market.
A shipment of some 1,000 tonnes of "yellowcake" (uranium concentrate) has been stuck at Niamey airport for several weeks.
"We are facing people who, because of our possessions, because of our wealth, want at all costs to bring us back to (...) what made them prosperous," General Ibro also said on Wednesday.
Before the coup, the share of French uranium supply coming from Niger did not exceed 20%.
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