GENEVA

France has cut off all of its financial aid to Niger following last week’s coup in the West African country.

"France suspends, with immediate effect, all its development aid and budget support to Niger," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The ministry also called for an immediate return to constitutional order in the country, under the leadership of elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was deposed last week.

Shortly after detaining Bazoum, last week a group of soldiers calling themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country issued a statement saying they did so due to the "deteriorating security situation and bad governance."

Bazoum was elected in 2021, in Niger’s first democratic power transition since it gained independence from French colonial rule in 1960.