The Burkina Faso authorities confirmed on Monday that they had requested the departure of French troops based in Ouagadougou within a month, the day after a request for “clarifications” from French President Emmanuel Macron, in this new episode of tensions between the two countries.
“What we denounce is the agreement that allows French forces to be present in Burkina Faso. This is not about the end of diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France,” said Burkinabè government spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo in an interview on Radio-Télévision du Burkina (RTB).
“French forces are based in Ouagadougou at the request of Burkina Faso and its authorities. This denunciation is in the normal order of things, it is provided for in the terms of the military agreement”, he continued, indicating that the denunciation left “one month to the other party to accede to this request”. .
Burkina currently hosts a contingent of nearly 400 French special forces, the Saber force.
In a letter from the Burkinabè Ministry of Foreign Affairs addressed to Paris and dated Wednesday, of which AFP had a copy, Ouagadougou “denounces and puts an end in its entirety to the agreement” of December 17, 2018 “relating to the status of the armed forces French intervening” in the anti-jihadist fight in the Sahelian country.
Sunday afternoon, Emmanuel Macron said he was waiting for “clarifications” from Burkina. In the evening, the French presidency had added to wait for a confirmation of the Burkinabè position at the “highest level”.
“At the current stage, we don’t see how to get any clearer than that,” Ouedraogo said on Monday.
According to him, this request for the departure of the French forces “is not linked to a particular event”.
“It is linked to the will, today, of the authorities of the transition and of all the Burkinabè, to be the first actors in the reconquest of our territory”, he added, specifying to expect friendly countries “support especially on the material level” to help the security forces.
Departure of the ambassador
France, a former colonial power, has been contested in Burkina for several months.
In December, the Burkinabè authorities had asked Paris to replace the French ambassador to Ouagadougou, Luc Hallade, in their crosshairs for in particular having reported on the deterioration of the security situation in the country.
Monday, Mr. Ouédraogo indicated that the government had “received all the assurances that the French authorities will accede to this request this week”.
Since coming to power in September following a putsch, the second in eight months, Captain Ibrahim Traoré and his government have shown their desire to diversify their partnerships, particularly in the fight against jihadism which has undermined this country since 2015. .
The new authorities have in recent weeks initiated a rapprochement with Russia.
“Russia is a choice of reason in this dynamic” and “we believe that our partnership must be strengthened”, underlined two weeks ago the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso, Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambela, after an interview with Russian Ambassador Alexey Saltykov.
At the beginning of December, he had made a discreet visit to Moscow.
This request to leave recalls the precedent of neighboring Mali: last summer, the junta in power in Bamako had ordered French forces to leave the country after nine years of presence.
Multiple sources report that the Malian authorities began bringing in the Russian paramilitary group Wagner at the end of 2021, whose actions are decried in various countries, which the junta denies.
“If there is someone who must be drinking whey, it is the Russian Evguéni Prigojine, the leader of the Wagner group, who intends to make Burkina his new El Dorado. “Come, the ground is free”, such seems to be the message sent to the Russian bear”, interpreted the private Burkinabe daily on Monday. The Paalga Observer.
In Burkina, the authorities ensure behind the scenes in Paris that they do not want to enlist the services of Wagner, whose liaison team has come to prospect in this country rich in mineral resources, according to several French sources.
Burkina Faso, particularly in its northern half, has been confronted since 2015 with attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organization. They left thousands dead and at least two million displaced.