French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said that the French Ambassador to Niger and other French diplomats are \u201cliterally being held hostage at the French Embassy,\u201d reported CNN. France has been at odds with Niger\u2019s new military leadership, after France\u2019s refusal to accept the July 26 coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum, a French ally. French President Emmanuel Macron has continued to support Bazoum, who is still being held. During Macron\u2019s visit to the Golden Coast region in France, Macron said the embassy in Niamey is not getting food delivered to them. \u201cFood was prevented from being delivered to the embassy in Niamey, and the ambassador was eating military rations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Macron further said that the French Ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte \u201ccannot go out\u201d, according to CNN. Reportedly, the military junta ordered Itte to leave the country as soon as they seized control of the West African country in July. However, later on, it revoked his visa and asked police to expel him, reported CNN. According to Macron, he remained in place and the French authorities reiterated that they do not recognize the junta authorities, according to CNN. When asked about bringing the ambassador back to France, Macron said, \u201d Asked if he would work on bringing the ambassador back home, Macron emphasized, \u201cI will do whatever we agree on with President Mohamed Bazoum because he is the legitimate authority and I speak with him every day.\u201d Moreover, Itte is still working, according to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, reported CNN.<\/p>\n
Colonna in an interview said, \u201cThe ambassador is working, I can confirm that, and he is very useful through his contacts, his team, there is still a small team with him,\u201d CNN reported. She further said that Itte \u201cwill stay as long as we want him to stay\u201d and his return will depend on Macron\u2019s decision. However, France is reportedly in discussions with the military of Niger over the possible withdrawal of its troops from the West African country due to the deterioration of relations following a coup in July, Al Jazeera reported citing French media reports.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Normand, a former French ambassador to Mali and Senegal, confirmed the information to Al Jazeera, stating that, in accordance with his sources, negotiations to \u201cpartially\u201d evacuate soldiers between the French and Niger forces were in progress. The discussions between the two militaries, according to Normand\u2019s source, should not be seen as a recognition of the coup leaders but rather as a \u201ctechnical\u201d discussion. Thousands of people rallied for days in the capital Niamey in support of the new regime\u2019s uncompromising attitude against the former colonial power and the coup leaders\u2019 call for the French ambassador and military to leave Niger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said that the French Ambassador to Niger and other French diplomats are \u201cliterally being\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":3274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[548,545,786,785,784,552,546,787],"class_list":["post-3273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-france","tag-french-ambassador","tag-junta","tag-military-coup","tag-neo-colonialism","tag-niger","tag-withdrawal-of-troops"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}