French police arrest reporter over leaked secrets
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But the appeal of cheap uranium is too strong apparently when the other suppliers are too close to Russia geographically, I guess.
People should come first. It's very disappointing.
France doesn't depend on Niger for Uranium, and the royalties are low because it's very hard to extract Uranium in a landlocked semi-desertic country with no road nor proper power grid.
Overall, I agree that France should leave this unprofitable mining operation - I'm sure that the Chinese or the Russians will propose much better deals!
Waging wars has nothing to do with fertility rates. A bit strange that they tend to do that at times, and at others when it's favorable to them, all of a sudden a coup is not a coup.
And France does depend on Niger for its uranium, check your facts, Niger is in 3rd position.
It's also well known that Areva hasn't been up to notch with environmental safety wrt its extraction and handling of radioactive garbage process. Locals are suffering.
It has nothing to do with how hard it alledgedly is to extract uranium. They wouldn't do that in Europe. Period.
How is there no infrastructure and the country has such natural resources being exported is a better question. The exchange is obviously unfair.
The country is free to do business with whoever they'd like. Not wanting to do business with the French government et.al. has nothing to do with the Chinese or Russians. They are not obligated.
It's a free market, not slavery.
And the so-called jihadism excuse, why is there no jihadism in the UAE, it's not jihadism, it's coopted poverty.
As it stands, the Nigerien military has also explained that there had been roadblocks in the fight against jihadism because they were not allowed to coordinate with the new governements of Mali and Burkina which have veered against French interests. That was one of the main reasons given for the coup.
It has nothing to do with too many people being born.
Which countries with such policies are you speaking of by the way? (I'm curious, I honestly don't know)
Besides, Nigeriens are currently 25 million which is less than half of the French population in a country that is twice the size.
Poverty didn't start yesterday, nor did the exploitation of natural resources. How is that country so poor and others such as Qatar aren't?
It's impossible not to notice that former French colonies are often poorer than their British, Italian (Libya before the French, once again, pushed for a military intervention and embarked the US in that campaign) or Portuguese counterparts.
The only way fertility is problematic is that the population is young and the infrastructures that should have been built AND maintained... haven't. Along with education and the health sector.
All the more reasons to understand why they can seem to resent the French government (and not France in general as is depicted in some media).
Frankly, if solutions haven't been found after all these years, they simply haven't been sought. Going from first principles, if one wants to solve migrations and whatnot, just let them develop themselves properly.
Well because Uranium just isn't gas or petrol, there's no way around it. There's a very limited amount of buyers and most of the actual value is in the power plant. Nobody ever got rich from a Uranium mine.
What will probably happen is they will sell it cheaper to China instead and get less money.
Checked, oil has been discovered in Niger in the 70's...so yeah... And they are still poor?!
And even then, they should have exchanged a package: Exploitation rights against revenue with costs of infra + maintenance deducted.
There needs to be roads or trains assuredly and whatnot for those exports to transit.
Who cares if they get a better bargain from the US, the Chinese or whoever else. That's competition. That's supply and demand. That's how they should get the most of what they have. No need to be so sour about it.
Also, wealth of nations comes from production, not just mere exploitation of ressources.
Countries like Germany got very rich early by producing valuable things instead of selling their ressources. On the contrary, Portugal had dozens of gold mines, and now it's much poorer than european industrial powerhouses.
Maybe because Niger produces 20k barels per day and Saudi Arabia 12 millions per day? What are we even comparing here?
With such a low production of petrol (of a similar level as metropolitan France actually) I don't think it's even worth selling it at all, it has more value as a strategic reserve for the military.
> Who cares if they get a better bargain from the US, the Chinese or whoever else. That's competition. That's supply and demand. That's how they should get the most of what they have. No need to be so sour about it.
Yes for sure, that's okay to sell it cheaper with the market rate to China if it's what they really want.
Second, the national demand is different, notably since there are less people.
I mean, at some point, arguing for arguing should stop. The facts are here. No need for the information to be grossly deformed...
Which countries with such policies are you speaking of by the way? (I'm curious, I honestly don't know)
And by the way, I'm not sure what other thing we're disagreeing about, to be clear, I don't think wars in Niger (and all ancient colonies in Africa) are endogenous.
Corruption, corruption, corruption, and incompetence. Qatar doesn't have illiterate and corrupt clowns running the show. Seriously, I'm African, and I don't understand why people find it difficult to say the truth to us.
We are our own problem because we keep giving birth to more people than we can handle and voting in buffoons to run the economy.
Hardly a strategic supplier - Niger could actually be replaced overnight, we're talking about <1bn$ amounts here. Uranium ore is easy to find, refining it is where the value is.
Also, you can't complain about poverty while refusing to see that fertility rates are a problem. Same with wars, many, many wars are due to population surplus and poverty. Add ethnic competition to the mix, which is typical in Africa, and you'll get the perfect recipe for war.
And yeah, how being the second or third exporter is not being a strategic supplier when the rest of the exports basically depend on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan?
If you have to switch up your whole supply-chain, don't you think that the price will be steep?
As I've said, Niger still has less than half the population of France on twice the territory. They should have been out-of-poverty a long time ago if the fertility rates were that high.
And the fact that wars are due to multi ethnicity is a masquerade. African empires of yesteryear have always been multi-ethnic. They were stable until colonization (Middle-East incursions which brought slavery and then Europeans who partaked in and expanded) So no, I don't believe that in countries where there are so many inter-ethnic marriages, multiplicity of ethnicities are a valid reason to scaremonger people with the possibility of wars.
Niger is the top recipient of international aid in the region, worth 1.8bn$ last year. French taxpayers contributed 131M$. Most of the population still live under the poverty line (2.15$ a day).
Where will Niger get the capital to double its power grid in the next 20 years? Territory size is meaningless, by your standard Hong Kong should be poorer than Russia given the extreme density differences. Most of Niger land is aride and can't be cultivated anyway, so food needs to be imported. Parabolic population growth will only make things worse.
Regarding multi-ethnic empires, can you give me a source? I believe that it's mainly tribal oppression against enslaved dominated ethnicities. Similar to Pygmee slaves still owned by Bantu people.
Improving the region would mean understanding what's wrong instead of blaming the white men for all of the trouble. Not sure we're on the good path.
I wasn't talking about density really but more expounding on the fact that given the rates, the GDP by capita should have been much, much higher back then and even today.
Regarding multi-ethnic history, one can easily find literature on the great African Empires such as Kanem-Bornu, Ouaddaï or Bagirmi for instance.
No one is blaming white men, don't make it about skin color. One can blame foreign governments when they are at fault. People really can't seem to be able to accept the faults of their leadership somehow but they are also the firsts to criticize the migratory politics. At some point, one should accept that things are not well coordinated all over.
Re. Capital to double its power grid, should have invested in infrastructure from the get-go hence the comparison to UAE countries which did the right thing. Dubai was literally the middle of the desert so I don't think that it was/is an impossible feat.
Then again, colonialism has had an impact even after these countries were officially independent, as they didn't have full-control regarding what to do with the oil discovered in the 70s for instance.
Nigerian here; no we're not. Our economy is dismal and barely growing, yet the population is exploding. Poor (and I mean dirt-poor) people account for the majority of this population explosion, giving birth to offspring that'll face a lifetime of suffering.
I agree with the person you're replying to. African countries cause their own problems because they give birth to more people than their economic growth can cater to.
Here's a dire stat; Nigeria is currently about 224 million, and 63% are classified as "multidimensionally poor" [1]. Yet, we're expected to surpass China in population at year 2,100 [2].
How on earth do we expect those hundreds of millions more people to survive when we can't even take care of the ones we have? Answer is no one has a plan, but poorer people keep giving birth like flies and most of their offspring won't escape poverty. This is what sheer lack of education causes, coupled with excessive corruption that hinders economic growth.
1 - https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/news/78#:~:text=In%20Nigeria%2C%....
2 - https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/nigeria-to-...
There are FOIA reports that the nato strikes on Libya were because the French president of the time wanted to have a better “standing” at home. Same bombing that led to the failed state that has now caused tens of thousands of people to die from a flooding.
France, and Europe have a ton of responsibility in what’s happening.
In general, the CFA caused lower interest rates to the countries using it, which is good for developed economies. The people complaining about the lost interest (I haven't seen a real proof about this btw) never speak about the massive french subsidies to the western african states (>$2bn), that dwarfs any retained income from the CFA treasury.
Ho, wait they are also complaining about this! https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1195128/economie-entreprises/la...
So yes, let's close the southern border, push back the boats and never set foot nor send money there. I'm all for this.
But France depends/ was depending mainly on uranium from Kazakhstan, Niger and Uzbekistan.
So I doubt it will be them. And even then, the price will simply not be the same.
France has historic links with Niger which is the reason Niger is the EU 2nd most important source for that ore.
What does France bring to the table in the EU? Its access to these resources amongst other things.
France has 2 years of ready to use fuel plus 5 years of fuel to refine meaning they have to get a replacement within the next 7 years or reuse waste or mine locally as a last resort, they'll be fine.
I'm not even sure the new dictator will live that long or change his mind in the meantime anyways.
> What does France bring to the table in the EU? Its access to these resources amongst other things.
Well no, those are a rounding error at best.