{"id":300441,"date":"2025-08-04T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=300441"},"modified":"2025-08-02T14:26:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T13:26:23","slug":"on-the-long-march-to-sovereignty-nigers-revolution-against-french-neocolonialism-enters-third-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/on-the-long-march-to-sovereignty-nigers-revolution-against-french-neocolonialism-enters-third-year\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Long March to Sovereignty: Niger\u2019s Revolution against French Neocolonialism Enters Third Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rally in Niamey against foreign intervention and in support of the coup leaders.<\/p><\/div>\n

Enduring a financial siege by France and terror attacks by its alleged proxies, the popular military government that replaced the puppet regime in Niger enters the third year of its rule, with concrete progress to show in agriculture, education, and power-generation.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

31 Jul 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Under siege by France\u2019s monetary strangulation and a war against their state by armed groups, Nigeriens marked the second anniversary of the July 26 revolution against French neocolonialism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The wave of mass protests against French military deployment in its former colonies had already washed away the regimes it had propped up in Mali and Burkina Faso when Niger\u2019s then-president, Mohamad Bazoum, was also toppled in a coup on this date in 2023.<\/p>\n

With the support of pan-Africanists, the left, and the mass movement protesting against French domination, the coup leader, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, established the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) as a military government.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince July 26, 2023,\u201d when Nigeriens made a \u201cpatriotic commitment to take our destiny into our own hands, the reactionary neocolonial system \u2026 has continued to unleash itself against our country and its people,\u201d Tchiani said in an address on the anniversary on Saturday.<\/p>\n

When his government ordered the French troops out soon after the CNSP was established, France mobilized 13 member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), for a war against Niger.<\/a><\/p>\n

The left and pan-Africanist forces in these countries counter-mobilized with demonstrations against the planned invasion of Niger.<\/a> In the meantime, Mali and Burkina Faso, also former ECOWAS members whose popular military governments had already expelled the French troops, formed a defense pact with Niger, which evolved into the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Tchiani\u2019s government consolidated popular support domestically by successfully holding the fort against the threats from France and expelling its troops by the year-end.<\/a> However, sanctions by ECOWAS strangled landlocked Niger\u2019s underdeveloped economy.<\/p>\n

France tightens the monetary noose around Niger\u2019s economy<\/b><\/h3>\n

Even after these sanctions were lifted in February 2024<\/a>, Niger remains in the clutches of a de facto embargo enacted by France through its control of Niger\u2019s currency, the CFA Franc.<\/p>\n

Established by France in 1945 and imposed on eight West African and six Central African colonies, this currency was originally pegged to the French Franc and then to the euro since its adoption in 2002. Printed in the Bank of France, it has no independent value outside the guarantee of conversion to the euro.<\/p>\n

France is using this currency, which has survived the formal independence of its former colonies, as a noose to choke Niger\u2019s ability to trade, said Aboubakar Alassane, a Nigerien member of the anti-imperialist West Africa People\u2019s Organization (WAPO).<\/p>\n

All foreign currency exchanges and transactions by the eight member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) that use the CFA Franc are handled by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) or its authorized intermediaries.<\/p>\n

Created by the French state in the late 50s, BCEAO was required until 2020 to maintain 50% of all its foreign reserves in the Bank of France. France also had guaranteed representation in its governing bodies.<\/p>\n

Some of these overt means of control were done away with in \u201csymbolic\u201d reforms<\/a> by the turn of this decade to obscure its neocolonialism, against which mass movements were rising in the Sahel.<\/p>\n

However, with CFA Franc still pegged to euro at an exchange rate guaranteed by France, BCEAO remains an arm of French neocolonialism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we export, say petrol, the money we are paid goes into the BCEAO, even when we are trading with the BRICS countries. Since we have refused this subjugation to France, it has become almost impossible to export,\u201d said Alassane.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we need to import something, we need to put our money in BCEAO\u201d to have the CFA Franc converted to euro by the Bank of France. \u201cWithout euros or dollars, we are unable to import,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The prolonged struggle for monetary sovereignty<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cSo to overcome CFA and establish our own currency is the next task of the revolution,\u201d Alassane maintains. He is hopeful that the solid foundation for this transition will be laid with the establishment of the AES Confederal Bank for Investment and Development (BCID-AES) this year. A draft text for the establishment of this bank and a roadmap for its implementation were prepared by May 25, when the three AES member countries\u2019 finance ministers met in Mali\u2019s capital, Bamako.<\/p>\n

A three-day meeting of finance experts in Niger\u2019s capital Niamey last week was followed by a meeting of its ministers from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger on July 24 and 25.<\/p>\n

Le Sahel<\/i> reported<\/a> that the draft\u2019s \u201cterms of reference relating to the preparation of the legal documents \u2026 procedure manuals and information system\u201d were among the subjects discussed at this ministerial meeting ahead of the July 26 anniversary.<\/p>\n

Expelling French troops and leaving ECOWAS was a matter of \u201cpolitical will\u201d, Alassane explained. But to break free from France\u2019s monetary chains is a \u201ctechnical\u201d problem that needs time to devise a solution, especially for one of the world\u2019s poorest countries, emerging from over a century of French colonial exploitation, continuing post-independence.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, even under these economic constrictions, the CNSP has accomplishments to show.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in Niger, we have not experienced a so-called lean period\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cThe Large-Scale Irrigation Program<\/a>\u201d rolled out last year is yielding \u201ctangible results,\u201d Tchiani said in his anniversary speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the CNSP came to power, the area under irrigation has been expanding\u201d, especially in main agrarian regions like Dosso and Tillab\u00e9ri, Salia Zirkifil, a 53-year-old rice farmer from Tillab\u00e9ri\u2019s Kandadji locality, told Peoples Dispatch<\/i>. \u201cThis has increased the food grains availability and made the prices more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ECOWAS sanctions in mid-2023, followed by unprecedented floods last monsoon, had sent food prices skyrocketing. \u201cA 25 bag of rice was costing between 16 and 20 thousand CFA. It is now available for 11 to 12 thousand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in Niger,\u201d Tchiani added in his speech, \u201cwe have not experienced the so-called lean period.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is common for farming families to cope with grain shortages during these periods by eating the seeds from the previous harvest. This leaves them with a shortage for the upcoming planting season.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince there was no lean period this time, farmers were able to save all their seeds for sowing,\u201d Zirkifil said, hopeful that the next harvest will be even larger.<\/p>\n

Cement structures replace Niamey\u2019s straw classrooms<\/b><\/h3>\n

Education is another key area where the CNSP has made progress. \u201cThe Executive Committee of the Union of Nigerien Students (CD-USN) particularly commends the large-scale classroom construction program both in Niamey and across the country,\u201d said its secretary general, Effred Al-Hassan. These classrooms are solid structures built of cement.<\/p>\n

Most classrooms in Niger, like most of its dwellings, are walled and roofed with either mud or straw. It is not unusual for these structures to collapse during the monsoon downpours. However, the scale of their destruction during the Sahel-wide floods between June and October last year was devastating.<\/p>\n

The government slashed the price of cement by half to aid reconstruction. In November that year, 50-year-old Boubakar Isaka was laying out all the small hollow blocks he had hand-pressed from the cement he\u2019d bought to dry under the Sahelian sun.<\/p>\n

Catching his breath, he pointed to the rubble amid three huts still standing on his small plot of family land in the rural southern outskirts of Niamey. Once rebuilt, his family \u2013 for the first time \u2013 will have a solid cement dwelling, he explained, speaking over the mooing and bleating of the cattle his elderly father was herding back in.<\/p>\n

A public school teacher by profession, Isaka harbored a simple hope for the future of education. \u201cI wish one day all classrooms in Niger will be made of cement,\u201d he told Peoples Dispatch<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has since built 3,000 cement classrooms in Niamey. We still have classrooms built of mud, but all the classrooms made of straw have been replaced with cement structures in Niamey,\u201d Alassane said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a student studies in a clean, well-ventilated, well-equipped classroom that is protected from the elements, it boosts concentration, strengthens commitment, and significantly improves academic performance. The physical setting directly affects students\u2019 mindset, behavior, and attendance\u2014positively influencing the entire educational process,\u201d explained student leader Al-Hassan.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally,\u201d he added, the CNSP\u2019s \u201cpayment of scholarships, stipends, and allowances\u201d \u2013 long overdue since the previous regime \u2013 has played an important role in \u201calleviating some of the social hardships of students. These payments reflect a willingness to listen to and address students.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, understaffed schools with a lack of qualified teachers \u201cremains a critical issue,\u201d he added. About 80% of the teachers are on contract. The persistence of this problem even under the CNSP is a major factor holding back the quality of Niger\u2019s education system, maintains Soumaila Koba, president of the Independent Teachers Union.<\/p>\n

Often paid late \u2013 and paid only a fraction of the wage received by their permanently employed colleagues in public schools \u2013 contractual teachers are forced to constantly seek alternative or additional work, inhibiting their ability to dedicate all their working time and effort to teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must fight terrorism for schools to function\u201d<\/b><\/h3>\n

Regularizing their employment and wages, and increasing recruitment, requires a considerable budgetary allocation. The government has so far been unable to allocate such resources amid the financial siege, especially since the more urgent demands of security are consuming a vast portion of the state\u2019s coffers, Koba explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire western zone is threatened\u201d by terrorist attacks that have left scores of schools shuttered, as the villagers, including the teachers and students, flee to safety. \u201cWe must fight terrorism for these schools to function,\u201d he told Peoples Dispatch<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Both Koba and Al-Hassan opine that the successful completion of the academic year with all exams conducted without fraud or other violations is in itself a commendable achievement amid the current security challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sahel region has been in the grip of a serious security crisis for more than a decade\u201d, threatening the very \u201cexistence of its states,\u201d Nigerien foreign minister Bakary Sangar\u00e9 said in his address to the 79th UN General Assembly last September.<\/p>\n

After spawning terror groups across the Sahel by destroying Libya in 2011 as a major participant in the US-led NATO war, France set up military bases in the region, ostensibly to fight these groups. However, the area under their control and the number of violent attacks they launched only increased under French militarization.<\/p>\n

France aiding terror groups?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

After the expulsion of its troops, France \u201cinforms, trains, finances, and arms terrorist groups in the Sahel\u201d as a part of \u201cits new strategy of recolonization,\u201d Sangar\u00e9 added<\/a> in his address to the General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Earlier in August 2022, Mali\u2019s foreign minister, Abdoulaye Diop, sought an emergency meeting in a letter<\/a> to the UN Security Council, accusing France of violating Malian airspace \u201cto collect information for the benefit of terrorist groups \u2026 and to airdrop them weapons and munitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Burkina Faso\u2019s president, Captain Ibrahim Traor\u00e9, accused<\/a> France of using two bases in Benin, which borders both Burkina Faso and Niger, to \u201ctrain terrorists\u201d. He claimed<\/a> to have \u201caudio recordings of French agents in Benin, who play at the terrorists\u2019 centers of operations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The accusation of France\u2019s use of Beninese territory as a launchpad for terror attacks has also been echoed within the country, including by trade unions, the Communist Party, and several civil society organizations.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/i><\/b> The people of Benin intensify anti-French protests in the wake of a terror attack<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

While France denies supporting terror groups, its ally Ukraine, to which it has provided billions of euros in military support, has been less than shy. Spokesperson of Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, said<\/a> in an interview last year that it provided \u201cinformation, and not only information,\u201d to armed groups fighting the state in Mali. Le Monde<\/i> further reported<\/a> that Ukrainian authorities are also training an armed group to use drones.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy insidiously combining high-profile terrorist operations\u201d with \u201csubversive economic action\u201d, France and its neocolonial regimes in ECOWAS \u201csometimes make us lose sight of what we have achieved together\u201d in \u201creappropriating our country\u201d and \u201cits immense resources,\u201d Tchiani said in his address.<\/p>\n

Uranium mining nationalized<\/b><\/h3>\n

Among Niger\u2019s most strategic resources are the large deposits of the highest-grade uranium in Africa. This resource was for long a monopoly of France.<\/p>\n

Niger\u2019s state-owned Sopamin was a minority stakeholder in the Soma\u00efr uranium venture mining these deposits. A 63% stake was held by the French state-owned Orano, which allegedly extracted a disproportionately higher 86% of its uranium production since 1971. When the CNSP stopped the export of uranium to France, Orano disrupted the mining, practically bringing production to a halt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut production has resumed\u201d after the CNSP nationalized Soma\u00efr, taking control from Orano last month, said Alassane. \u201cWe are accumulating stockpiles.\u201d Although unable to export for now due to the \u201cfinancial embargo by France\u201d, he is confident that once the AES has wrestled out of the CFA and established a sovereign currency with its own central bank, uranium mining will yield the much-needed funds to finance development in Niger.<\/p>\n

Using uranium to generate nuclear electricity domestically can only be a distant goal for Niger, whose economy, shaped to extract resources for France, is extremely underindustrialized outside the mining sector.<\/p>\n

While the extracted uranium powered French nuclear reactors, lighting a third of all the bulbs in the European country, over 85% of Nigeriens lacked connection to the national electricity grid.<\/p>\n

About 70% of the electricity consumed in Niger is imported from neighboring Nigeria. Its president, Bola Tinubu, had led the charge to mobilize ECOWAS, which he was chairing at the time, for a war against Niger at the behest of France, when its puppet regime was ousted in July 2023.<\/p>\n

He was unable to mobilize his own parliament for the war. Nevertheless, he plunged much of Niger into darkness by cutting off its electricity supply when ECOWAS sanctions took effect in August 2023.<\/p>\n

Even after the sanctions were lifted last February, Nigeria\u2019s resumed electricity supply was only 46 megawatts per day, 42% less than the pre-sanctions level of 80 megawatts<\/a>. Severe shortages thus continued, causing prolonged power outages that sometimes lasted for days in Niamey.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now,\u201d Alassane said, \u201cwe have a steady power supply in the city because of the two new power plants\u201d \u2013 a 30 megawatt solar plant<\/a>, the largest of its kind in the country, commissioned by the CNSP in late 2023, and another 20 megawatt thermal plant<\/a> inaugurated last December.<\/p>\n

Dependence on Nigeria for electricity has reduced significantly in Niamey, but persists outside the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cMastering electrification means mastering the source of industrialization, enabling the processing of agricultural products, and thus laying the foundations for autonomous development,\u201d maintains<\/a> Mamane Adamou, leader of Niger\u2019s Institute for Evaluation Strategy and Forecasting (ISEP).<\/p>\n

Much distance remains to be covered on the rocky road to this autonomous development. However, confidence remains high among the popular movements that the CNSP is leading the country on that road, with sincerity.<\/p>\n

\u201cA difficult but victorious fight that we will have to wage over time\u201d<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cNo major political project on a national scale has been carried out in haste and in a short time; this is particularly true in the case of Niger, taking into account \u2026 the issues related to the exploitation of our natural resources, and the unprecedented adversity we face today,\u201d said Tchiani.<\/p>\n

It is a \u201cdifficult but victorious fight that we will have to wage over time\u201d, and on \u201ca path full of pitfalls,\u201d he added in his anniversary speech, making no claims of false or premature victory. \u201cWe have made this choice to take the difficult path \u2026 together and in unity, with full responsibility and with a clear awareness of the issues and challenges that await us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, he went on to reassure Nigeriens that \u201cdespite the difficult situation we are going through and the fierce adversity we face, our country is indeed on the right path: that of dignity, sovereignty, and the fight for a better future for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – peoplesdispatch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

31 Jul 2025\u00a0–\u00a0Enduring a financial siege by France and terror attacks by its alleged proxies, the popular military government that replaced the puppet regime in Niger enters the third year of its rule, with concrete progress to show in agriculture, education, and power-generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":300442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[237,2187,1675,551,3111,612],"class_list":["post-300441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-africa","tag-decolonization","tag-france","tag-neocolonialism","tag-niger","tag-postcolonialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300443,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300441\/revisions\/300443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}