(CN) — A military coup on Wednesday in the oil-rich West African nation of Gabon became the latest disaster for France's long-standing goal to keep a major presence in its former African colonies.
The coup in Gabon, a former French colony ruled for the past 55 years by a corrupt family dynasty and close ally of France, follows a series of major geopolitical setbacks for Paris in Africa.
The most serious attack on France's African ambitions took place just over a month ago when the democratically elected government of Niger was ousted in a military coup. It was the fourth coup in a Francophone West African nation since 2020.
The coup in Gabon took place early Wednesday morning when the country's mutinous military announced it had taken over the government. The news prompted large crowds of cheering Gabonese to take to the streets in the capital Libreville.
“France condemns the military coup that is underway in Gabon and is closely monitoring developments in the country, and France reaffirms its wish that the outcome of the election, once known, be respected,” French government spokesman Olivier Veran said.
Gabon's president Ali Bongo Ondimba was put under house arrest by the junta. He was seen in a video exhorting Gabonese to “make noise,” but there were no immediate reports of violence.
He was ousted immediately following the announcement of election results that showed him winning another term in office. Bongo and his father have ruled mineral-rich Gabon for 55 years, amassing vast wealth through corruption.
The Bongo family is accused of wasting the country's natural resources and leaving a third of Gabon's 2.5 million people living under the poverty line and up to 40% of young people unemployed.
The military takeover in Gabon adds to France's spiraling problems in Africa, which reached a major crisis point on July 26 when the coup erupted in Niger.
Tensions over Niger have grown more dangerous since then. Other West African nations, backed by France and the United States, are considering to intervene militarily to restore the ousted government of President Mohamed Bazoum.
After the military took over in Niger, massive crowds took to the streets to express anti-French sentiment and the French embassy in Niger's capital, Niamey, was attacked.
Many Nigeriens also showed support for Russia and the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force whose growing influence and activity in Africa is a major concern for Western powers.
“The recent military coup in Niger marks the point of no return for the unraveling of France’s dominant economic and military influence across West Africa,” wrote Michaël Tanchum, an Africa expert at the University of Navarra in Spain, in a recent analysis.
“Occurring solely among francophone West African nations, the assumption of power by military elites in these impoverished yet mineral-rich countries was justified as an effort on their part to end exploitative neo-colonialist relationships with France,” Tanchum said.
The standoff between France and Niger's military junta may be reaching a dangerous climax.
The junta is demanding France remove its ambassador, Sylvain Itte, and also its military presence in the country. French President Emmanuel Macron has told the ambassador to stay.
On Monday, Macron lashed out at Western allies for not taking a more forceful stance on Niger. Paris has not excluded backing an invasion of Niger, though several African nations are wary of sparking a larger regional war.
France has about 1,500 troops in Niger and a military base; the United States also operates a major military drone base in the country. French and American troops have been involved in fighting jihadist groups.
Niger has long been important to France's ambitions and interests in the Sahel, the sub-Saharan region where France once held vast colonial territories and continued to play a major role.
Niger supplies up to 20% of the uranium France needs for its nuclear power plants and military. French companies have been mining uranium for more than 40 years in Niger.
Since 2020, coups Mali and Burkina Faso have forced France to withdraw its military presence from both of those countries.
For the past decade, France has desperately sought to assert itself in the Sahel by keeping thousands of troops in the vast semiarid region at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.
After 2013, French soldiers fought alongside the armies of Mali, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania against armed groups of jihadists and insurgents affiliated with the Islamic State — such as Boko Haram — and al-Qaeda.
France's objective was to prevent jihadists from establishing control of the region. It set up army bases, opened civilian radio stations, ran a fleet of military helicopters, conducted patrols across the Sahel, trained African soldiers and attacked rebel groups.
But critics warned that France's approach was failing because it hadn't stopped terrorist attacks while it worsened relations between ethnic groups and communities and created more resentment in the Sahelian populations who saw European troops as a colonial power.
France first sent troops to Mali in early 2013 at the request of the Malian government after an insurgency erupted in its poor and long-neglected northern regions.
At the time, weapons and jihadists were pouring into Mali from Libya, which had fallen into civil war after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi's regime by rebel groups supported by the United States and France.
After French troops arrived, the jihadists went into hiding, but reemerged and began attacks beyond Mali. By 2014, France's mission in the Sahel had changed too: It expanded its fight into Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania, places where the French had long had a presence both as colonizers and as a postcolonial power.
France's efforts were backed by other European nations because the Sahel had become a place where jihadists and criminal groups ran lucrative corridors trafficking humans, drugs and weapons into Europe. The violence in the region also was forcing people to flee and many were heading toward Europe.
But France's strategy also fomented anger because it was seen as propping up unpopular autocratic governments and their armies even though they had been accused of human rights abuses, deep corruption and disastrously neglecting parts of their countries.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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