With eye on Islamist fight, France backs military takeover in Chad

France on Thursday defended the Chadian army’s takeover of power after the battlefield death of President Idriss Deby presented Paris with an uncomfortable choice – back an unconstitutional military leader or risk undermining its fight against Islamists, Reuters reported on Thursday.

While the opaque political and business ties that once bound France to its ex-colonies in Africa have frayed over the last decade, interests remain closely intertwined and under Deby’s rule Chad was a key ally in combatting Islamists in the Sahel.

Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, justified the installation of a military council headed by Deby’s son on the grounds that stability and security were paramount at this time.

“There are exceptional circumstances,” Le Drian told France 2 television.

Deby’s son Mahamat took control of the country and its armed forces on Wednesday, dissolving the parliament and suspending the constitution. According to the constitution, National Assembly Speaker Haroun Kabadi should have taken over.

Opponents called the move a coup.

“Logically, it should be Mr Kabadi…but he refused because of the exceptional security reasons that were needed to ensure the stability of this country,” Le Drian said.

President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly said he wants to break from a past in which France appeared to call the shots in its former colonies, and he has urged the older generation to hand over to Africa’s younger politicians.

But after a coup in Mali that saw Paris forced to accept a fait accompli and incumbent presidents in Ivory Coast and Guinea returning to power, that policy has been increasingly tested.

Nowhere more so than in the Sahel, where France’s 5,100 troops, which includes a base in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, remain entrenched fighting groups backed by al Qaeda and Islamic State with few prospects of being able to pull out.

Idriss Deby was killed on Monday on the frontlines of a battle against the Libyan-based Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) rebels who invaded from the north.

An authoritarian ruler for more than 30 years, he was nonetheless a lynchpin in France’s security strategy in Africa. Two years ago Paris came to his help dispatching warplanes to stop a Sudan-backed rebel advance.

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The 624 new cases reported between March 28 and April 3 is a reduction from the 849 recorded the previous week…With eye on Islamist fight, France backs military takeover in Chad

With eye on Islamist fight, France backs military takeover in Chad