Two-hundred-and-ten-thousand Niger citizens have returned to their home country to flee the fighting in Libya. People like Mallam Abdou who worked as a garbage-man in Ourba and sent 300 dinar (150 euros) back home every month. Multiply that by the number of Niger workers who have come back, and you get the scale of the disaster France, the UK and the US have imposed on the countries of the Sahel.

US President Barack Obama has stopped Madagascar, Guinea and Niger from receiving trade benefits for a year. Mr Obama said that each of these countries “have experienced an undemocratic transfer of power” and that they had failed to make “continual progress” in meeting US requirements for The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.