In all earnestness, as someone who isn’t too aware of Nigerian politics - why shouldn’t the elected government be helped back into power? What reasons do we have to believe that the junta has the best interests of the Nigerian working class more than the previous regime?
I’m not super well read on it, but to summarize:
- We KNOW that the French definitely don’t have the interest of the Nigerian people at heart. (ask more if this isn’t clear).
- We also know that the French government is neoliberal capitalist, and opposes the aims of the global socialist movement.
- It remains to be seen how “good” or how “socialist” the future government turns out to be, but their initial actions of being hostile to French colonialism have been good for socialism so far.
- the most demonstrable action has been to cut off exports of uranium to France, putting the government of Niger in the driver’s seat to control that. Now we wait (months, years?) to see if they use that to benefit their people.
I don’t know much about Nigerien politics (btw Nigerian refers to Nigeria), but I’ve been trying to read up since the coup. It seems the coup government enjoys a lot of popular support, as opposed to the previously “elected” government. I’ve seen people claim that the previous elections were a sham, with the winning candidate straight buying up votes with US and French funds, though I don’t have proof for this claim (but seems plausible).
As an outsider looking it, it certainly seems to me that a government that wants to oust French economic and political influence from the country will be far better in improving Nigerien people’s lives rather than a government that is in favour of maintaining French influence in the country.
Niger is a prime example of Parenti’s view “there are no poor countries, there are over-exploited countries”. Niger has rich deposits of Uranium, Gold, precious stones, Oil, and rare minerals.
The reason it has become such a headline is that Niger is France’s prime supplier of Uranium, and France acquires that Uranium at 20% its regular price. France is the EU’s largest producer of electricity from nuclear powerplants. And it sells this electricity at quite a profit. France should have the cheapest electricity in the EU by far, but it actually sells it at the average EU price, which means all that difference is pure profit. It also exports a lot of this electricity, primarily to Belgium and Germany.
Long-story short, if France loses Niger as a Uranium supplier, its economic rating WILL go down from AA to A, which, along with everything else going on, will trigger a major recession. Germany’s energy needs will also be directly impacted, especially since they are cut off from Russian gas.
So I don’t know much about the Junta in Niger and their intentions, beyond what they’ve already announced publicly, but I do know that France has a vested interest in exploiting Niger. Therefore, any Nigerien government that France doesn’t like, is probably good for the people of Niger.
And lastly, we should remember that what is branded as military coups by the West are sometimes socialist revolutions led by the military. Examples: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Thomas Sankara in (the neighbour of Niger) Burkina Faso.
It seems the coup government enjoys a lot of popular support, as opposed to the previously “elected” government.
I fully expect it to if they publicly frame it as a response to widespread grievances but they’ll have to quickly move to address them lest they lose that support. Junta and “protest” generally don’t mix.
branded as military coups by the West are sometimes socialist revolutions led by the military
True, but Sankara seized powers from other military rulers, not a civilian government. Chavez also won elections before rewriting the Constitution. The “military coups” in Venezuela were generally to ensure democratic institutions and processes were followed since the Venezuelan right wing engages in subverting Bolivaran Constituonal processes.
I didn’t expect them to do it this fast
I think the result of Ukraine has made then desperate to make moves before the imperial siphons are all stripped from them. If they don’t make major moves over the next 5-10 years the collapse will be dizzingly fast IMO…they lose power to make moves every passing day…
They could have worked to reorient their economy to one that doesn’t rely on exploitation but Europe only knows one way after 5 centuries so this makes sense.
That’s just how any advanced capitalist economy works
Basically just do it fast and distract people with Ukraine because people will eventually get bored of Ukraine and it won’t be an effective distraction method
Algeria should take retaliatory action against france for all the atrocities they committed there.
They should shoot down Aire Feaursse Ouanne. Or whatever is the name of Macron’s plane.
“Should” is pretty meaningless. They will if they have the power to and they believe it will benefit them.
So what I’m hearing is “Give Algeria a Gundam”?
Yeah, but they should focus on getting things stable in Niger before going guns blazing if they want the retaliation to succeed.
given the Chinese influence in west africa I stongly suspect the new Nigerien government will stabalise if the Chinese are backing them
Government of Niger
The Nigerian government is a different entity
Nigérien =/= Nigérian
Frankly, Algeria is way too nice to France. They really should be issuing arrest warrants for every French imperialist and demand reparations for their crimes in Algeria and elsewhere, which are still ongoing.
