No sooner had Paris absorbed the shock of the Niger coup than French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement on July 30 revealing the extent of the danger he felt, declaring that his country “will not tolerate violence against France and its interests in this West African country.” any attack”.
Macron is aware of the seriousness of the possible threat to the energy security of French reactors, the country affected by the anti-Paris coup military council, which is considered the oldest link between France and the uranium mines that power the reactors of the old colonists. Provide power. Although France has enjoyed exclusive rights to use Niger’s uranium mines for the past few decades, the new changes appear to cast a shadow over the French interests that Macron has talked about more than once.
long french heritage
France first discovered uranium in 1957 in Azerik, Niger, followed by the official announcement in 1971 that France opened its first uranium mine in the city of Arlit (Al Jazeera)
As soon as you pass the “Arlit” sign written in rusty letters, you will feel that the Niger city of Arlit is quite aptly nicknamed the “Second Paris”. Located in the middle of the Sahara Desert, 900 kilometers northeast of the capital, Niamey, the city tells the story of how French colonialism one day disappeared from here until Niger’s independence ended in 1960.
Over the past six decades, France has remained keen to maintain a foothold across West African countries, and it has developed political, diplomatic, military and economic ties with the rulers of its old colonial states, a network often referred to as “Françafrique” (French-African Special Relations ). But on a very special level, Niger, a poor country in the Sahel, holds a special place in Paris. It lights up a third of France’s light bulbs, while much of the country remains dark, with nearly 90 percent of the population without regular access to electricity.
In 1957, France first discovered uranium mines in Azerique, Niger, and then officially announced in 1971 that France opened its first uranium mine in the city of Arlit, when the French state-owned Areva Company (now known as Orano) assumed the tasked with extracting the most commonly used mineral for French nuclear power.
Over time, Orano currently operates three mines in Niger, of which only one is currently producing, the Somair mine in Arlit, which the company operates in partnership with Niger company Sopamin. The Akouta mine, about 10 kilometers away from the urban area, has been closed in 2021. However, Orano has not given up on the site and will carry out “post-mine” activities before 2033. Likewise, the Imouraren mine, 80 kilometers south of Arlit, was also closed. Arlit is one of the largest uranium deposits in the world. On-site production has been suspended due to unfavorable market conditions, while France relies heavily on uranium for nuclear power generation. Paris remains one of 13 EU member states that use nuclear power plants to generate electricity, arguing that nuclear power offers a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels in electricity production.
France relies heavily on uranium for nuclear power generation (Al Jazeera)
Before 2000, France mainly relied on domestic uranium production, but with the depletion of uranium in France, the last mine in France was closed in 2001. The French government has placed greater emphasis on its policy of diversifying imports of foreign uranium as a source of security for French nuclear power plant operator EDF and, as suggested by France’s long-standing supply agency, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
Over the past few years, Paris’ strategy has focused on introducing uranium into Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Australia for cost reasons. As of 2022, France has five uranium suppliers, namely Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Australia and Canada, in addition to Niger. Niger continues to supply 15% of France’s radioactive metal reserves, with Orano controlling most of the country’s production, accounting for more than 4% of the global total.
While Niger is no longer the strategic partner of Paris that it was in the 1960s and 1970s, French extraction of uranium from Niger remains a pressing issue today. That’s because French company Orano’s turnover was 9 billion euros ($12.4 billion) a year nearly a decade ago, more than four times Niger’s entire annual budget of 2 billion euros. This has sparked domestic outrage over the need to use extractive industry funds to boost development in one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries.
There was also outrage over the careless incident of the French, who left dangerous levels of radioactive waste in the local population living near the mine when they mined uranium. After the closure of the Akouta mine in 2021, they left behind 20 million tons of radioactive waste in the town of Arlit.
What did France do in Niger? How did the French steal uranium from Africa? (Social networking site)
Uranium at the heart of French concerns
On July 26, employees of the French company Orano were busy at work when they received news of a military coup in the country. At the time, the French company’s management had to work hard to reassure employees and prepare them for the current environment, the first of which was a nationwide curfew in Niger. In fact, Orano’s 900 employees in Niger, most of whom are Niger nationals, were able to continue their activities at the company’s headquarters in Niamey and at its operating sites in Arlit and Akoukan. While there is no sign yet that the company will be forced to leave Niger, management of the company, which has operated in the country for 50 years, has raised concerns that the military could oust the French group, or that any Evacuation in case of emergency.
First, it can be argued that preventing companies in any way from getting the job done, not just the huge financial losses, the lack of alternatives or abandonment of mine safety actions will lead to huge health and environmental risks. The reason is that the groundwater that people may use has been contaminated by uranium deposits, and the company is tasked with covering debris and remaining rock to prevent the spread of radioactive fallout or to prevent rainwater from loading and contaminating the groundwater.
As Niger’s coup d’état ignores French and international fanfare, the country’s old colonizers immediately play an irreplaceable role. First, Paris has provided decades of massive economic and development aid to the country, where 40% of the population lives in poverty. Foreign aid accounts for 9 percent of gross domestic product and about 40 percent of the state budget, while 33 percent of Niger’s exports, almost all irradiated fuel, go to France in a sharply declining economy.
Paris fears fate of energy stability needed for France’s nuclear industry already essential to its power generation (Reuters)
Indeed, if the putschists insist on ending the French presence, and Paris continues to suspend French aid, it will be difficult for Niger to find a suitable replacement partner to help with uranium mining and follow through on the sale process. As for the French government, Paris worries not only about its waning political influence in Niger and across the Sahel, but also about the fate of the energy stability France needs for its nuclear industry, which is already necessary for its power generation.
Against this backdrop, there were soon signs that Paris’ concerns were gaining ground as the military’s anti-French rhetoric escalated. They accused the French government of “wanting to intervene militarily in their country”, after which the country’s military council threatened to suspend heavy metal exports to France. This gave Paris an idea of what awaited it in one of its most important former African colonies. Recently, coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and other countries have weakened their influence and suffered serious blows one after another.
In the initial moments of the coup, the French believed that banning uranium would not hurt France in the short and medium term, since Paris had strategic reserves of uranium in various stages equivalent to two years of consumption. However, the French themselves do not deny that Niger still plays an important role in the country’s uranium supply. A moratorium on Niger’s mining of the mineral, which meets an estimated 15 percent of the needs of its nuclear power plants, will affect the process of obtaining energy. About 70% of France’s electricity comes from nuclear energy, making it the country most dependent on nuclear power in the world.
Uranium war: Russia bearing the brunt
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, who was recently killed in a mysterious plane crash, was one of the first to intervene in the coup crisis in Niger. The man who has sent thousands of fighters to the countries of Mali and Burkina Faso was quick to offer help to Niger’s military following similar military takeovers. That has raised some concerns, including what will happen to the uranium, which will be exported to France and the European Union, if Niger’s junta accepts Wagner’s or the Russians’ overtures.
While the possibility cannot be ruled out that Niger’s new military rulers will resort to the “uranium card” and block its shipment to the West in response to EU sanctions and aid cuts, we must firmly recognize Niger’s importance to European energy stability. Niamey is the EU’s largest supplier of uranium in 2021, followed by Kazakhstan and Russia, which is currently the world’s seventh-largest producer, according to Euratom’s supply agency. If we know the importance of nuclear energy in Europe, the importance of Niger increases. It accounts for about 10% of the EU’s energy consumption by 2022, while not forgetting the very important fact that Niger does not ban the use of uranium to produce nuclear weapons, while other major uranium producers such as Australia and Canada severely restrict the use of the metal for civilian use field use.
Even considering alternatives to Niger uranium, France and the EU turning to important producers such as Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan is not really a guarantee of energy stability. So at a time when Russia will not hesitate to use energy as an economic weapon, these two countries alone account for half of France’s imports of natural uranium and about 50 percent of the world’s mineral supply, ending up as two of the Kremlin-influenced countries. The former Soviet republics, all their radioactive fuel is transported by Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power company.
Russia itself is another major supplier of uranium to European nuclear power plants, and it is also one of the world’s largest exporters of uranium, controlling nearly half of the world’s radioactive metal enrichment capacity. Taken together, this means that there is a Russian leash in what U.S. officials have recently called “unsustainable strategic vulnerability.” About one-third of the enriched uranium consumed by U.S. facilities in 2022 will come from Russia. At a time when uranium and nuclear energy are generally exempt from international sanctions, the EU may be forced to drop sanctions on Russia’s nuclear sector, or at least postpone them for a while.
With Moscow showing its willingness to join the scramble for influence in Niger, France and the West fear that the Kremlin will actually use uranium as an economic weapon, so they are prepared to defend their interests to the end. It also means that the poor and marginalized coastal state is becoming an arena for a struggle for influence at the expense of its poor and marginalized population.
It has the world’s second-largest fleet after the United States, with 56 of 18 power stations using uranium.
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2023-09-03 13:57:52
