Opinion: France has neither military-political authority nor economic power
In recent weeks, the media has been widely covering the situation in Niger. France, for example, supports the decision of the Economic Community of West African States to gather a group of people to carry out a military operation against those who staged a coup in Niger, while the United States adheres to the position of a peaceful settlement of the conflict and the release of Bazoum, without his return to power. Not long ago, the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, visited this African country and met with the leadership of the local military who had conducted the coup. Ms. Nuland demanded that they ‘calm down’ and return Mohamed Bazoum to power – threatening otherwise with the use of force. The media later reported that France was dissatisfied with the results of Ms. Nuland's visit to Niger.
The Dean of the Faculty of Journalism at the Belarusian State University, Aleksei Belyaev, commented on the ongoing events in his talk with Alfa Radio.
According to Mr. Belyaev, there is no surprise in the US policy which is trying to get into the African affairs of France.
“France hoped that if, for example, Mexico is the ‘backyard’ of the United States, then Niger is its one. Meanwhile, enemies and friends come to this ‘backyard’: Russian influence and American diplomats are recorded there. From the point of view of French, this is interference in their sphere of responsibility, and they are very unhappy about this, of course. Considering that, in recent years, the United States has demonstrated complete disregard to its European allies regarding their national interests, it seems no surprise that the US is trying to get into the African affairs of France in its policy. However, for some reason, France started to be indignant about this only recently, though this should have been done a little earlier. France has always regarded this territory as a region of its national interests, so even the intervention of supposedly American friends is a severe hurt to its pride,” the expert explained.
The radio programme host responded saying that no one has been viewing France seriously recently, and Mr. Belyaev agreed, “True, we see already that, from the point of view of world politics, France is an ignored entity today. Macron recently asked to attend the BRICS Summit scheduled to be held in South Africa. He wanted to come, but he was diplomatically informed that he is not waited there. Macron also tried to interfere in big politics with the Chinese leadership, to conduct some negotiations. He also wanted to mediate on Ukraine with Putin, but we see that France's initiatives are continuously not supported. To put it bluntly, France – which was once a truly great world power, a dictator in terms of political fashion – has significantly lost its former weight, like Europe as a whole. This is their mistake. Earlier, France was the only adequate state of Europe, which tried to maintain its power and military weight until the last. France wanted to act as a leading power, a European locomotive relying, among other things, on military and political force. At present, we see that France has neither military-political authority, nor economic power, nor diplomatic capabilities left.”
