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00:00 now for more on our top story in Niger and the coup d'etat which has been underway there
00:05 since Wednesday. I can welcome our politics editor, Marc Perlman. Thanks very much for
00:11 joining us, Marc. So first of all, we now know who the head of this so-called transitional
00:17 council is. What did he say in this televised address that we've just seen?
00:20 Yeah, just a few minutes ago, finally, I should say, we know who the leader of this coup is.
00:27 We had information that it was the head of the presidential guard, General Chami. Now
00:32 it's official. He just took to the airwaves on national television, and he explained that
00:38 he was indeed the head of this new junta that took power or is about to take power, depending
00:47 on how you define it. Just a couple of days ago, there was uncertainty. There were probably
00:53 negotiations as to whether he would officially come out as the leader or if he wanted to
00:59 stay behind the scenes. We now know that he is the leader, and he also explained some
01:06 of the reasons why. And essentially, he said, you know, I was in charge of the military.
01:12 He was just appointed as chief of staff in early April. Sorry, the army chief was only
01:20 appointed. He has been there for 10 years. But what he was saying is that despite all
01:27 the changes that were put in place by the president, he had not been able to deliver
01:32 when it comes to security. He said that clearly the results were not there. He said that the
01:41 president had actually used the armed forces sometimes as a private militia. This is a
01:47 very serious allegation. He said we're not actually fighting terrorism. We're pretending
01:53 to, but we're not actually doing so. And he also lamented the fact that cooperation with
02:00 Mali and Burkina Faso was not happening. He said, OK, because we have disagreements. Obviously,
02:06 there were coups in those two countries, and President Bezoum was very much opposed to
02:10 this. And as a result, cooperation with those two countries, he said, from a security standpoint,
02:17 he thought that this was ill-advised, that this was a mistake. He was more vague in terms
02:24 of what this means concretely for the security cooperation. Let's not forget there are 1,500
02:32 French troops on the Netherlands. So he said, you know, we're hoping our partners will understand
02:38 what we're up to, our financial partners, because obviously there are lots of challenges
02:43 for the country, but also our security partners. Now it's a big question mark. Will France,
02:52 will the United States, who have a military presence in Niger, decide to cooperate with
02:56 the regime they've vividly denounced, but now seems to be entrenched? The big question
03:03 mark still remains. What will happen with the president? He still has not, as we speak,
03:08 formally resigned. And his foreign minister, who said on France 24 yesterday that he was
03:15 the interim chief of government, is still around. He's also free. He's still free to
03:21 communicate, I can tell you that. And so it's a kind of strange situation, but maybe things
03:26 will come to a head in the next few hours. Yeah, we've had a serious lack of clarity
03:29 for about a day and a half now. So is this now confirmation that this coup d'etat is
03:36 complete? We've now seen the French president this Friday calling it a coup for the first
03:43 time and not just an attempted coup. So is this now clarity on who is leading Niger or
03:48 are we still going to see some power wrangling and uncertainty going forward, do you think?
03:52 Well, at least on the side of the rebels, we know who their leader is. We knew who he
03:57 was, but now it's official. The problem is that you still have two powers in parallel,
04:03 because the president is still in his position as we speak. The logic would be that he will
04:11 be forced to sign a resignation letter and maybe go to another country. But he has not
04:19 accepted this. He's still free to speak. He spoke to the French president this morning.
04:24 He's still exchanging. The next step would be maybe his arrest or at least some rest.
04:31 But this hasn't happened. Even those who were in government with him, party members,
04:37 the military have essentially tried to avoid any brutal confrontation in the hope that
04:45 things might go smoothly because they're facing criticism regionally, internationally, even
04:52 by Russia, for instance. So it's not an easy situation for them. If there is violence,
04:58 this could obviously become even more difficult for them.
05:01 And General Tiani, what more then do we know about this man?
05:04 Well, he was the head of the presidential guard since 2011. He was appointed by the
05:11 former president of Niger, Mohamed Ouissoufou, who's very close to Mohamed Bazoum. He finished
05:18 his two mandates. He said he would not run again because this is what the constitution
05:23 says. And Mohamed Bazoum took the helm and he decided to keep General Tiani. Often when
05:32 you come to power, you change the head of the presidential guard. He didn't do this.
05:36 One of the reasons why he didn't do this is that as he was about to be inaugurated two
05:42 years ago, there was an attempted coup and who essentially saved him? General Tiani.
05:49 So obviously, as a result, Mohamed Bazoum thought, well, this is a loyal man. He saved
05:57 me. So I will keep him in that position. And clearly, we didn't know until a few minutes
06:03 ago what has changed. And clearly, General Tiani said there was discontent within the
06:09 military about the job that was done in fighting terrorism, that this was not properly done.
06:15 He said, we warned President Bazoum that this is not right. You're not doing this the right
06:21 way. And as a conclusion, at least in his mind, they had no choice but to try to destitute
06:30 him, take matters into their own hands and try to do a better job on the security front,
06:35 but also on the social and economic front, because Niger is one of the world's poorest