“On July 30 we were close to disaster”: admits the French Ambassador to Niger

“First of all, I’m tired. » More than a week after his return to France, Sylvain Itte, the ambassador to Niger who was expelled from the country by the coup makers, gave an interview to Paris Match. In a lengthy interview, the diplomat spoke about the two months he spent locked up in the embassy in Niamey after a coup by the military junta. He describes “difficult conditions” and “constant pressure” while having to comfort his wife and four children from a distance.

“On July 30 we were close to disaster. It’s a miracle that we all escaped unharmed! “On that day, hundreds of putschist demonstrators surrounded the embassy. For more than two hours, with the help of Nigerian guards, to whom he gives credit, he and his team withstood “thousands of shells.” According to him, the current government wanted to “offer the image of a fallen symbol.”

Then the embassy learned to live on rations, food, as well as gasoline and medicine. “We were not given water one day, gasoline the next, bread the third,” he says.

On August 25, the situation escalated again when he received an obligation to leave the territory in the following days. “I constantly received verbal notes from the junta notifying me of my expulsion,” says Sylvain Itte, who describes “daily pressure.” Added to this are “death threats and insults” against him on social networks. “We have also received many messages of support from Nigerians. It helped us hold on.”

However, he rejects the term hostage, “but I was held against my will, that’s for sure.” It wasn’t until September 27 that he finally boarded the plane “with a huge sense of loss.”

No “anti-French sentiment”

How could such a situation develop? “My expulsion was just ideological incitement. The junta was content to copy what happened in Mali and Burkina Faso as if they were following a play perfect little putschist ” assesses Sylvain Itte, who adds that he is not surprised by his expulsion.

For him, “anti-French sentiment” does not really exist. “I traveled a lot around the country and everywhere I met people who were satisfied with our cooperation. Some people had complaints against us, this is normal. But this famous one feeling Anti-Frenchness does not concern the entire country,”

He pays tribute to the “extremely hospitable, interesting and resilient” people of Niger. According to the diplomat, the series of coups that have occurred in Africa in recent months (Gabon, Mali, etc.) have multiple origins. “But the main reason is the frustration of young people without horizons, which fuels populism,” he says. ” We (France) became a convenient scapegoat. Who is most likely to pay the bill? Civilian population »