Burkina Faso has expelled three French diplomats for “subversive activities,” according to a Foreign Ministry note seen by AFP on Thursday.
The three were declared “persona non grata” and told to leave the country in 48 hours, the ministry said in a note dated Tuesday that was sent to the French embassy.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated considerably since Captain Ibrahim Traoré came to power in a coup d’état in September 2022, and this move is at least the third taken against French nationals since.
According to a report, Burkina Faso’s foreign ministry has notified France of the expulsion of the embassy’s military attache for “subversive activities” in an official letter cited by AFP on Friday.
The ministry said Emmanuel Pasquier and his team had two weeks to leave the country, which underwent two military coups last year.
The letter added that the French military mission in Ouagadougou would be closed.
France, which withdrew troops from its former colony in the face of mounting hostility after Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in September 2022, rejected the accusation.
“The accusation of subversive activities is obviously fanciful,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP in Paris.
France recalled its ambassador from Ouagadougou after the September coup and has not replaced the envoy.
Since the French pullout in January, Burkina Faso has developed closer contacts with Russia, an ally of the junta in neighboring Mali.
The impoverished landlocked country is in the grip of jihadist campaign launched from Mali in 2015.
More than 17,000 civilians, troops and police have died, according to an NGO monitor.
More than two million people have also been forced to flee their homes, creating one of Africa’s worst crises of worst internal displacement.
Anger within the armed forces led to a coup on January 24 2022, toppling elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore.
On Sept. 30, Kabore’s nemesis, Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, was himself overthrown by the 34-year-old Traore.
French ambassador withdrawn after the coup
Since coming to power in a September 2022 coup, the junta has distanced the West African nation from France, which ruled the country until 1960. It has cancelled a 1961 military accord between the two countries and the French ambassador was withdrawn after the coup.
France has ended anti-jihadist military missions in Mali and Burkina Faso and more recently began to withdraw forces from Niger – all three countries where juntas are now ruling after coups. Burkina Faso has increasingly turned to Russia, Mali and Niger for security assistance.
Source:
CGTN
