Coup in Niger

[Sheilbh]

Coup in Gabon last week as well - another core part of France-Afrique. There had been an election there and France had expressed concerns when Ali Bongo won his third term in with strong allegations of fraud - that is perhaps undercut by the previous 56 years of close alliance with him and his father. Similarly despite those concerns Bongo was last in Paris on an official visit in June and France jointly hosted a maor conference on green development with Gabon in the last year.

Macron has complained of "a kind of rise in the politics of resentment, fed here by reinvented or fantasised anti-colonialism" - and to an extent that may be right. Burkina Faso's coup leadership especially love using Sankarist, anti-colonial, anti-French rhetoric. Yet I think while it may not be what is motivating these coups it feels like it must be part of what is legitimating them. It's also worth flagging that Traore, the President of Burkina Faso, gave a speech at the Russian-African forum in St Petersburg that was strongly anti-colonial (and also said they'd have failed if they still need to rely on Russia this time next year) and the Presidents of Kenya and the DRC have explicitly confronted Macron at joint events over French policy in Africa - all of those clips went viral in Africa. So while it may be reinvented or fantasised I think it is a force and I think that France-Afrique is crumbling before our eyes (which is probably a good thing).

It seems like it'd make a lot of sense for the US and, to the extent possible, the EU to de-couple their policies in West Africa and the Sahel from the French. No doubt Russia and China will try to take advantage. But I'm not sure the story is just meddling outsiders (or that those are exclusively Russian and Chinese) and that local failures are also important.

On that - shared his post on Niger but I thought this from Ken Opalo on how Ghana escaped the coup trap was also really interesting:
https://kenopalo.substack.com/p/how-ghana-escaped-the-coup-trap?r=4ugz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Not going to lie - reading that, I'm not sure there's a great deal of hope from any of these coup regimes

[Josquius]

I can't help but wonder whether the nations taking Chinese investment aren't also banking on China being toothless if things go awry.
The west has a history of intervention in Africa. China doesn't. The theoretical capacity to do so is all very new to it.