By Ayomide Otitoju
France has confirmed that it provided surveillance and logistical support to help Benin’s authorities thwart a coup attempt over the weekend, marking a renewed show of cooperation between Paris and West African partners amid rising regional instability.
An aide to President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke anonymously to reporters on Tuesday, said the French president coordinated with key regional leaders following Sunday’s failed putsch. The aide said France acted at the request of Benin’s government and assisted the Beninese armed forces with “surveillance, observation and logistical support.” Details of the intervention were not disclosed.
The coup attempt unfolded on Sunday when a group of soldiers seized Benin’s national television station and announced the removal of President Patrice Talon. Loyalist forces quickly regained control with support from neighbouring Nigeria, which conducted military strikes around Cotonou and deployed troops to back Benin’s government.
The attempted overthrow comes as West Africa continues to grapple with successive coups that have weakened democratic structures and reduced French influence in several former colonies. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have all experienced military takeovers in recent years, prompting the withdrawal of French troops previously stationed there for counterterrorism operations.
A successful coup in Benin — also a former French colony — would have dealt another major blow to Paris’s standing in the region.
According to the Elysee, Macron spoke with President Talon on Sunday, as well as with the leaders of Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the latter currently holding the chair of ECOWAS.
The French presidential aide said the situation in Benin “caused serious concern” for Macron, who “unequivocally condemned this attempt at destabilisation.”
ECOWAS announced that troops from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone were being deployed to Benin to help safeguard constitutional order. Omar Alieu Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission, warned on Tuesday that the community was “in a state of emergency” due to escalating jihadist threats and the resurgence of coups.
France, which did not intervene during the 2023 coup in Niger that deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, reaffirmed its political backing for ECOWAS, with the aide noting that the regional bloc made “a very significant effort this weekend.”
Loyalist military sources reported that at least a dozen coup plotters had been arrested and all hostages, including senior officers, freed by Monday. President Talon later appeared on national television to declare that the situation was “completely under control.”
Talon, 67, is expected to leave office in April at the end of his second and final term. Benin, long seen as one of West Africa’s more stable democracies, has faced increased jihadist violence in its northern regions in recent years.
Former president Thomas Boni Yayi on Tuesday condemned the failed coup, calling it “a bloody and shameful attack on our country.” Boni Yayi, whose party has been barred from contesting next year’s presidential election, stressed that political transitions must occur “through the ballot box” and in accordance with democratic norms.
