Niger wants Russian firms to invest in uranium and other natural resource production, its mining minister said on Wednesday, amid an ongoing dispute with former colonial master France.

French nuclear group Orano halted uranium output in Niger last month as relations soured with the military junta that seized power in July 2023.

“We have already met with Russian companies that are interested in coming to explore and exploit Niger’s natural resources… not only uranium,” mining minister Ousmane Abarchi told Russia’s Ria Novosti press agency in an interview.

“With regards to French companies, the French government, via its head of state, has said it does not recognise the Niger authorities,” he said.

“Does it seem possible in this case that we, the State of Niger, accept that French companies continue to exploit our natural resources?”

Abarchi’s comments come with several West African countries recently having downgraded historical ties with France, turning instead towards Russia and other countries for strategic partnerships.

Niger’s military rulers have vowed to revamp rules regulating the mining of raw materials by foreign companies in what is the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer.

Orano has denounced a withdrawal by the junta in June of a permit for one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, Imouraren, and the impossibility of exporting the raw material since Niger’s border with Benin was closed for what Niamey says are security reasons.

AFP