Traoré's military junta has reportedly given Paris 30 days to organise the final departure of its more than 400 troops

Burkina Faso threatens to follow in Mali's footsteps by expelling French troops

photo_camera AFP/ISSOUF SANOGO - Moscow is exploiting anti-French sentiment in the region to gain influence, also taking advantage of insecurity and instability

Burkina Faso will follow in the footsteps of neighbouring Mali if nothing changes in the coming weeks. Ibrahim Traoré's military junta has formally requested the withdrawal of French troops from the country in a letter sent to the French Foreign Ministry. The Burkinabe transitional government is said to have granted a 30-day deadline to organise the final departure of the more than 400 French troops deployed at the Kamboisin military base on the outskirts of Ouagadougou. The move would deal a blow to the geopolitics of the Sahel in a context marked by the uncontrolled advance of jihadist groups and the presence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. 

The uniformed men had announced hours earlier the withdrawal of the French army in a brief communiqué published by the state news agency AIB. The Burkinabe military leadership has reportedly taken the decision to annul the agreement regulating the presence of French troops on its territory since 2018. Its deactivation sets in motion a countdown to the departure of French troops. The Elysée, which had already foreseen the situation, has a month to carry out the logistical formalities, but said it had not received confirmation through official channels. The messages, Macron explained, are confusing.

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The French president demanded immediate clarification from the Burkinabe authorities and warned of the need to "be careful". Macron alluded to possible interference from Russia, which is interested in deploying mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary wing in the region, and therefore needed to make sure that the information had not been manipulated by the Burkinabe military faction closest to the Kremlin. The Elysée suspects that the army leadership is divided over France's military presence on its territory and there is no unanimous position on the issue, reports Le Figaro. Any support would tip the balance in favour of one or the other, and the next few hours could be decisive in clearing up any doubts. 

The French Foreign Ministry's secretary of state, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, said in early January during an official visit to Ouagadougou that French troops would remain deployed in Burkina Faso "as long as our presence is required". "The soldiers of Operation Sabre are present with the agreement of the Burkinabe authorities. We are in a sovereign country, it is up to the country to determine the choice of its partners," she added. France would therefore abide by the final decision of the Burkinabe military junta, as it did with the mandate of the Bamako military junta in August 2022. 

"This may be junta activists trying to force Traoré to formally request the withdrawal, or it could be an actual decision by the junta that has been expressed in a relatively unconventional way, but Traoré's silence at the moment is interesting," says analyst Nathaniel Powell in conversation with Atalayar. "There is significant political pressure both within the junta and among politically influential elements of civil society to get it done. What is not clear to me is what Traoré's position is, because there are also, apparently, significant elements within the army who are very much against a Russian option, even if they are not particularly 'pro-French'".

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Malian analyst Oumalha Haïdara does not believe that the leader of the military junta, who came to power on 30 September after a coup against his comrade-in-arms, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, wants to follow Mali's path. "Although they have certain realities in common, the two countries remain different in several respects. In Burkina Faso, there is not this multiplicity of armed actors as in Mali. There are no pro-independence political-military movements, the inter-communal conflict is not sufficiently developed, and the little that exists there is a natural extension of Mali's", he tells Atalayar from Bamako. 

The 34-year-old captain, who has combat experience against jihadist groups, had previously threatened to change alliances and open the door to Wagner's mercenaries in the face of France's inability to contain the advance of the insurgents, who already control half the country. Relations with France have deteriorated by leaps and bounds since the coup against Damiba, who also came to power through a coup d'état. The new authority denounces Paris's interference in internal affairs and is suspicious of the intentions of its troops. 

The streets of Burkina Faso's capital seem to support the uniformed forces. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Ouagadougou on Friday to demand the expulsion of the soldiers of Operation Sable - a subsidiary of Barkhane - and their ambassador, Luc Hallade. They come to the rallies with Russian, Malian and Burkinabe flags, and carry posters with the portraits of Captain Traoré and the President of Mali, Colonel Assimi Goïta. The most repeated face, however, is that of Vladimir Putin. The Russian president is the political leader most esteemed by protesters who accuse Paris of secretly supporting the jihadists.

Between 400 and 500 French soldiers are currently deployed in Kamboisin. They could pack their bags in the coming weeks and leave the country, as their colleagues stationed in Mali did just a few months ago. Most of them would leave for neighbouring Niger, a country that, along with Chad, has become the centre of French counter-terrorism operations in the Sahel and at the same time its most reliable partner. A part of the contingent, however, could be redeployed to military bases in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon operated by the French armed forces, although the Elysée is considering closing them to dispel recriminations against its regional influence. 

Wagner's shadows 

Burkina Faso's Prime Minister, Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambèla, travelled to Moscow in December for a discreet meeting with the number two of Russia's diplomatic chief, Sergey Lavrov. The renowned Burkinabe lawyer and polemicist, appointed acting head of government by Traoré, would later say that "Russia is an option and our relationship must be strengthened". But Tambèla, educated in Paris and a follower of Thomas Sankara, is openly suspicious of the Kremlin's postulates. So, when Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo accused the Burkinabe military junta of having deployed Wagner mercenaries in exchange for the exploitation of a gold mine in the south of the country, the interim government summoned the Ghanaian ambassador and threatened to break off relations over the statements, which it described as "serious".

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