Niger’s military leadership ordered the police to expel the French ambassador after President Emmanuel Macron’s administration rejected an Aug 28. deadline for its representative to leave the country.
(Bloomberg) — Niger’s military leadership ordered the police to expel the French ambassador after President Emmanuel Macron’s administration rejected an Aug 28. deadline for its representative to leave the country.
The authorities also revoked the ambassador’s visa, Niger’s junta-installed foreign ministry said in a letter addressed to France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. A French diplomat said the country had noted the request, but repeated Paris’s stance that the soldiers don’t have the authority to make it.
The ambassador “no longer enjoys the privileges and immunity attached to his diplomatic status,” according to the letter, which was confirmed by a junta spokesman. The diplomatic status and visas of other “concerned parties” and family members were also revoked.
The development comes after Macron rejected the junta’s demand to recall his ambassador a month after a coup disrupted relations between the two former allies.
Ambassador Sylvain Itte last week was given a 48-hours deadline to return to Paris, which expired on Sunday.
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