Military leaders are expected to continue consultations to nominate a 69 member transitional council and a transitional government ahead of the inauguration of Mahamat Idriss Deby as interim president on Monday. Before Idris Deby’s funeral on Friday, President Macron and his counterparts from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger jointly met with Deby’s son. The leaders, expressing a “unity of views”, said they “stood by Chad and expressed their joint support for the process of civilian-military transition, for the stability of the region”, a French presidential official said.

Opposition leaders have called for a period of civil disobedience to protest the takeover. The army said on April 20 Deby died of wounds suffered during a fight against rebels who had entered the country from Libya on April 11, the same day as Chad’s presidential election. News of his death came hours after the 68-year-old was declared the winner. Chad’s military has taken over its government. It’s imposed a curfew, suspended the constitution, and dissolved government and parliament.

Deby’s 37-year-old son, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, was named president on April 21 and will lead a transitional military council for the next 18 months. He is a senior military commander. The rebels have rejected the transitional military authority and vowed to pursue their offensive. The group – the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) – is based in Libya, where it has a non-aggression pact with renegade military
commander Khalifa Haftar. Mainly made up of the Saharan Goran people, FACT clashes frequently with the Chadian army along the border. The Chadian army says 300 rebels were killed in the latest fighting.

Deby had been in power since 1990. He had survived numerous armed rebellions and was a major French ally, hosting the base for the French military Operation Barkhane and supplying troops for peacekeeping efforts in Mali. Chad has also played a major role in trying to contain the Nigerian armed group Boko Haram.