“Considering the situation in Niamey, the violence against our embassy the day before yesterday and the fact that the airspace is shut and our citizens cannot leave by their own means, France is preparing the evacuation of its citizens and European citizens who wish to leave the country,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The evacuation will start today,” it said.
According to the French foreign ministry website, there were just under 1,200 French nationals in Niger in 2022.
But French media including paper Le Monde said only around 600 were in the country right now as many families with children were on holiday. The foreign ministry declined to give a precise figure but spoke of “several hundreds.”
Italy also said on Tuesday it would offer a special flight to repatriate its nationals from the capital Niamey.
The United States, Germany, and Italy have troops in Niger on counter-insurgency and training missions. There has been no announcement of troops being evacuated so far.
Regional bloc ECOWAS has imposed sanctions, including border closure, a halt in all financial transactions and a national assets freeze, and said it could authorise force to reinstate Bazoum, who is still locked in his palace.
But the juntas of neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea all voiced their support for the coup’s leaders on Monday.