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As French Embassy Closes in Niger, West Africa Charts a New Course

Over the past few years, numerous West African states have taken steps toward greater economic and security sovereignty, often in opposition to Western (specifically French) designs on the region.

The anti-imperialist reforms have taken place under unelected military governments which, unusual to many Westerners, enjoy far greater public support than the ostensibly democratic governments they overthrew. This is because the preceding governments, often backed by the West, were only democratic in rhetoric; most people in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger viewed these “democratic” states as in fact anti-democratic, corrupt, and ineffectual against the threat of jihadist insurgency.

As I have documented in these pages, there has been a string of successful military coups in West Africa in recent years: in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon. The coups have occurred in the context of deteriorating security situations, which the Western policy of backing jihadist forces in Libya did much to enflame.

Western-led military operations like France’s Operation Barkhane (2014-2022), the European Union’s Takuba Task Force (2020-2022), and the UN’s MINUSMA in Mali (2013-2023) did little to alleviate the security threats. Consequently, the militaries in various West African countries became disillusioned with the US and Europe as security partners.

In August 2020, a military coup led by Colonel Assimi Goïta successfully seized power in Mali. The junta has asserted its sovereignty in numerous ways, including by leaving the European-funded G5 Sahel organization and booting out French forces.

In Burkina Faso, a September 2022 coup brought to power the 35-year-old captain Ibrahim Traoré, overthrowing the previous military junta of Paul-Henri Damiba, which had removed the ineffective civilian government of the banker Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in January 2022. In addition to refusing Western military aid, Traoré appointed Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla as prime minister, a Marxist and pan-Africanist who supported Thomas Sankara’s efforts to build socialism and economic self-sufficiency in the 1980s.

And in July 2023, the Nigerien military overthrew US-backed President Mohamed Bazoum, who had offered Niger as a base for US and European troops after the anti-Western coups in Mali and Burkina Faso. The military takeover, led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, caused a regional earthquake, with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led by Nigeria threatening an invasion to restore Bazoum to power. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron was reportedly furious over a perceived failure to predict Bazoum’s ouster.

The military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso vowed to defend Niger from any invasion, and Tchiani remains in power. Now, the region has largely faded from the headlines. This does not mean these countries are no longer struggling against insurgencies or taking more steps to recover their economic and security sovereignty from Western powers. As recent developments show, events in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger continue to move quite quickly.

On December 12, France announced the closure of its embassy in Niamey, Niger, claiming the embassy is “no longer able to function normally or carry out its missions.”

The closure follows a tense confrontation at the French embassy in August-September of last year. After the coup, the Nigerien government expelled French Ambassador Sylvain Itté, giving him 48 hours to leave the country. Macron disobeyed Niger’s government and kept Itté in his post. The government responded by blockading Itté inside the embassy, while Nigerien protestors threatened to storm the building if French personnel continued to resist the Nigerien leadership’s orders. On September 24, Itté was finally recalled to France.

On military agreements, too, France was quick to dismiss the legitimacy of the Tchiani government and defend the status quo—either blind to the tsunami of anti-French sentiment sweeping the region or unconcerned by it. This was evidenced by the fact that when Niger ended its military agreements with France, the French government refused to accept reality, claiming that Nigerien leaders had “no legitimate authority to do so.” It took several months for France to agree to withdraw its troops. French soldiers finally left Niger in December.

One likely reason for Macron’s hesitancy to cooperate with Nigerien authorities was the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali in August 2022 and Burkina Faso in February 2023. Niger was the final holdout of France’s military influence in the region. With Niger’s expelling of the French military, the future of France’s neocolonial domination of West Africa—the Françafrique system by which France manages the currencies, budgets, and many of the resources of the region—hangs in the balance.

One cannot expect France to quietly accept the popular resistance to neocolonialism in West Africa. They did, after all, support the overthrow and murder of Burkina Faso’s beloved anti-imperialist leader Thomas Sankara in 1987. The French government has taken various measures to try to contain or roll back the anti-French uprising in the region over the past several years.

In 2021, France allegedly interfered in the European-funded G5 Sahel organization—a coordinated military force involving Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania, and Chad—to prevent Chad from passing the organization’s presidency to Bamako. Mali responded by leaving the G5 Sahel (Niger and Burkina Faso left the G5 in early December, effectively ending the alliance).

In Niger, the French government supported ECOWAS’s invasion threat against Niger. The Nigerien government responded by saying Macron’s support for a military attack on Niger “aim[s] at perpetuating a neocolonial operation against the Nigerien people.”

On December 1, meanwhile, Burkina Faso arrested four French passport holders, accusing them of “espionage,” as they went to the French embassy for a “computer maintenance operation.” Even if the espionage charges have no merit, the arrests are indicative of West Africa’s suspicions toward French actions in the region—suspicions that are well-founded given France’s past and present interference.

In the security sphere, the actions of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger go far beyond the G5 Sahel. On September 16, the three nations announced the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States, a mutual defence pact signed in the context of France-backed invasion threats from ECOWAS. The member states assert that “any attack against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracting parties will be considered as aggression against the other parties.” There are even talks of the three West African nations uniting into a federation.

In the absence of France’s coercive security and economic influence, Russia has deftly asserted its soft power in West Africa. Recently Niger ended two security agreements with the EU, repealed an agreement with the EU that criminalized migration through Niger to Europe, and welcomed a Russian delegation to discuss “military and defence issues.” The delegation concluded with “the signing of documents as part of the strengthening of military cooperation between the Republic of Niger and the Russian Federation.”

Russia also dispatched a delegation to Mali, where they discussed Russian exports of wheat, fertilizer, and petroleum products and “development projects for Mali, in terms of renewable energy and nuclear energy.” Notably, Russia also has plans to help Burkina Faso develop a nuclear power plant to meet the nation’s energy needs.

In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, Russian investment is often preferred over French companies, which have profited immensely from the region while contributing next to nothing to the people. However, these nations’ assertions of economic independence go beyond collaboration with Russia.

On December 4, Niger nationalized its drinking water, taking back control of this crucial resource from French company Veolia and its local subsidiary SEEN. Sylvain Itté, the French ambassador expelled in September 2023, had previously sparked outrage in Niger when he told Nigeriens to “stop drinking water, since it is European.”

Mali and Burkina Faso, meanwhile, have taken steps to increase state control over their mining sectors, which are dominated by foreign companies, including Canadian ones. In Mali, these mining reforms led Toronto-based Barrick Gold to get involved.

Barrick CEO Mark Bristow claims that after the announcement of Mali’s new mining code, which allows state and local investors to take a larger share in foreign-owned operations, he spoke with the Malian government and “walked back some of the components of mining code.” Barrick’s efforts to roll back the Malian state’s role in mining, and thus reduce the country’s available tax revenue, comes as one million children in Mali are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Despite sanctions, threats from France, and foreign pushback against the nationalist reclamation of resource wealth, West African states are charting a new course, one of increased economic and security sovereignty. This means increasing control of key resources and the forcible end of French military and economic dominance in the region. Western players, be they French officials or Canadian mining companies, will continue to oppose these reforms, but they remain the popular course in all three countries.

(Owen Schalk is a writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and a columnist at Canadian Dimension magazine. Courtesy: Canadian Dimension, a forum for debate on important issues facing the Canadian Left today, and a source for analysis of national and regional politics, labour, economics, world affairs and art.)

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Barrick Gold Bristles at Mali’s New Mining Code

Recent reports indicate that the relationship between Mali’s military government and Canadian mining companies are growing more strained, particularly around the investments of mining giant Barrick Gold.

Canada is a major player in the West African mining sector. In 2022, 98 Canadian mining companies operated across the entire continent of Africa, the total value of their assets sitting at $37 billion. When divided by region, West Africa forms the largest chunk of that pie at almost $14 billion.

Canadian investments in Mali make up almost half—$6.7 billion—of all Canadian mining assets in West Africa. This makes Mali the second most lucrative country in Africa for Canadian mining companies, after only Zambia.

The Government of Canada website notes: “Canada and Mali’s trade relationship is characterized by Canadian private sector investments in the mining sector… The combined Canadian private sector investments in Mali make Canada one of the top sources of investments in the country.”

The leading Canadian mining companies in Mali are Barrick Gold, B2Gold, and Endeavour Mining. These companies generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for their shareholders each year. By contrast, over 90 percent of the Malian population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank. Extreme poverty is also on the rise, going from 15.9 percent in 2021 to 19.1 percent in 2022. According to USAID, “nearly half of the highly dispersed population [lives] in extreme poverty.”

A number of military coups have occurred in West Africa in recent years, including in Guineau, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. These military takeovers have been generally anti-Western in character, suffused with fiery anti-colonial rhetoric. Meanwhile, the US has seen its troops booted from Niger as the region’s leaders look for alternative military partners (namely Russia) who may be more effective at crushing the Islamist insurgencies in their countries.

Despite the bloody fighting in the region, Canadian companies remain heavily invested in West African minerals. However, recent moves by the government in Mali may give Canadian companies, and by extension Ottawa, cause to fret.

In August 2023, Mali adopted a new mining code that increased the state’s role in the sector. The code allows the state to take a 10 percent stake in mining projects with the option to purchase a further 20 percent within the first two years of production. The code also proposed that five percent be ceded to locals. Previously, Malian state and local interests took a 20 percent stake in new mining projects. With the new mining code, that number has risen to 35 percent.

According to Malian officials, the new mining code aims to add an additional US$803 million per year to state coffers.

By and large, Canadian mining companies did not criticize the Malian government as it pushed ahead with the new code, perhaps fearing the long-term security of their investments in the coup-prone region. However, a spokesperson for Barrick Gold noted that the new law represented a “difference of opinion” between the company and the government.

At the time, West Africa analyst Mucahid Durmaz predicted that “the change will likely encourage more state interventions such as demands for renegotiating mining contracts, introducing additional taxes, and temporary suspensions of mining projects.”

Later, the government of Mali audited the mining sector and announced that it would seek to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in the industry. Barrick Gold rejected the audit’s findings as “legally and factually flawed and without merit.”

Tensions between Barrick and the Malian government keep rising. The Globe and Mail has reported that Mali may be seeking to expropriate the highly lucrative Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine, of which Barrick currently owns 80 percent.

According to Globe reporter Geoffrey York, “In earnings calls over the past eight months, Barrick chief executive officer Mark Bristow has repeatedly acknowledged that the company is facing unspecified ‘challenges’ in its Mali operations.” Bristow has visited Mali twice since late January to emphasize “the company’s huge contributions to state revenue.”

On May 1, the Globe published a report that Barrick is pushing back against “unspecified changes to the tax, financial and legal regime at its Loulo-Gounkoto mining operations.” These changes would increase the role of the state in Mali’s mining industry. According to the Globe, Bristow responded to Mali’s efforts with a warning: “Be careful you don’t compromise the benefits to Mali by taking too much….”

Bristow attributed the government’s efforts to assert control over the mining industry to the ignorance of Malians. In a conference call with analysts, Bristow said, “We’re dealing with people that are not particularly competent in the mining industry.”

Meanwhile, a delay in permitting for B2Gold’s Fekola mine spooked the industry, with Miningmx reporting that “Mali’s new mineral code puts B2Gold Fekola growth at risk.” In the article itself, CEO Clive Johnson attempts to allay industry fears, but also states: “We don’t really understand the implications of the new code yet because the government is still working on it. We are hoping to have the answers in the next couple of months.” He then stressed, “Fekola’s contribution to Mali’s gross national product is huge… We are confident that the current government of Mali wants gold mining and they want more of it.”

Mali is not alone. Nationalist reforms are spreading across West Africa. In October of last year, the government of Burkina Faso increased royalties on the mining industry. Niger has kicked out French and US troops while nationalizing its drinking water, taking back control of this crucial resource from French company Veolia and its local subsidiary SEEN.

The new president of Senegal, a supporter of “system change” and “left-wing pan-Africanism,” has announced an audit of the oil, gas, and mining sectors.

It is fair to say that Mali’s mining reforms fit with this pattern. While the US claims that Mali is turning the screws on the mining industry because it wants to hand lucrative gold mines to Russian interests, these reforms are part of a broader anti-colonial uprising sweeping the region.

If Mali continues to put pressure on Canadian mining companies, it would not be unreasonable to assume Ottawa may involve itself in the dispute.

(Owen Schalk is a writer from rural Manitoba. He is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023 and the co-author of ‘Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy’ with Yves Engler. Courtesy: Canadian Dimension, a forum for debate on important issues facing the Canadian Left today, and a source for analysis of national and regional politics, labour, economics, world affairs and art.)