Oh my god, the “leaders” of the local “regimes” ( ) are committing the worst crime possible: they’re bringing uncertainty to the business environment!

The three countries are part of what is known as Africa’s “coup belt”

The cope. The cope.

These countries, part of the semi-arid strip south of the Sahara known as the Sahel, are among the world’s poorest but are rich in mineral resources.

Their more interventionist stance, according to people familiar with the regimes’ thinking, stems from a desire to assert national sovereignty after decades under the thumb of western miners and subject to contracts the new rulers view as tilted in favour of the companies.

And some paragraphs later…

But as a company whose largest shareholder is the French government, Orano’s plight encapsulates the entanglement of big business and geopolitics in the Sahel.

Masterful propaganda piece, FT.

Oh, and one of the article’s writers, Aanu Adeoye:

He joined the FT in 2022 after completing a fellowship at Chatham House, where he researched Russia-Africa relations.

I can envision his whole cover letter in my mind.

“It’s terrifying dealing with the regime [in Mali],” said one person involved in the negotiations, who asked for anonymity

English Wikipedia editors heavy breathing

Despite their “increasingly hardline approach”, said Mucahid Durmaz, analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, the cash-strapped military governments were eyeing miners as a “lucrative” source of extra revenue rather than trying to force them to “pack up and leave”.

I think balance of payments will be an issue. They still use their “former” colonizers currency, CFA Franc.