"coups and anti-French sentiment have seen Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger cut ties in favour of Beijing and Moscow" [Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger]
The named states cutting ties with France in favor of Beijing and Moscow directly evidences the coup-driven patron-switching mechanism the signal identifies.
Reasoning from this article
The Sahel cases represent a repeatable structural pattern: military coups that displace Western-aligned governments create discontinuous realignment opportunities for China and Russia, who face none of the colonial-legacy baggage. This dynamic is not unique to France — it mirrors how Russia entered Central African Republic and how China deepened ties in Myanmar post-coup, suggesting a generalizable great-power opportunism around political ruptures.