AT the end of a Franco-German Council of Ministers held this Sunday at the Elysee Palace, Emmanuel Macron answered questions from the press. He was notably questioned about the situation in Burkina Faso, where the presence of the French contingent is disputed by the authorities.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he was waiting for “clarifications” from Burkina Faso on a possible request for the departure of French troops stationed in the country within a month.
Referring to “great confusion” in the information that has circulated since Saturday in Ouagadougou, Emmanuel Macron explained that he wanted to wait for the transitional president Ibrahim Traoré “to be able to express himself”. “I think we have to be very careful”, “we are waiting for clarifications from Mr. Traoré”, he added during a Franco-German press conference in Paris.
A source close to the Burkinabè government said on Saturday that the authorities requested “the departure of French soldiers as soon as possible”, confirming information from the Burkinabè Information Agency (AIB).
Growing tensions
This information and these uncertainties are part of a context of growing tensions between the two countries for several months and while Moscow is trying to advance its pawns, in particular via mercenaries from the Wagner company, in this country weakened by jihadist attacks. On Tuesday, the transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a putsch at the end of September, the second in eight months, told students that the “fight for sovereignty” was “committed”.
“In the hours to come you will see a certain amount of information tending to review our relations with certain States”, he had warned, while France, a former colonial power, which maintains a contingent of nearly 400 special forces in the country as part of its anti-jihadist fight in the Sahel, has been contested in Burkina Faso for several months.
Russian manipulation?
Several demonstrations, the last Friday, recently took place in Ouagadougou to demand the withdrawal of France from this country in the Sahel, a region covering several countries where Paris has for nearly a decade engaged in a vast policy to fight against the spread of groups. jihadists, but who is on the back foot, and who has already had to leave neighboring Mali at the request of the coup authorities – who have also decided to use the services of Wagner.
On Burkina, Emmanuel Macron insisted on the need to be wary of the “manipulation” of information, “a specialty of some in the region who may incidentally be linked with (…) our Russian friends”.
French authorities regularly accuse Russia or its services of trying to manipulate public opinion on the continent and stir up anti-French sentiment.
