Burkina Faso cuts diplomatic ties with ex-ruler France

ABIDJAN: Burkina Faso’s ruling junta on Friday severed diplomatic ties with former colonial ruler France, accusing Paris of persistently acting against its interests.

The military regime led by captain Ibrahim Traore, in power since a coup in September 2022, is pursuing a policy repressive toward critical voices and hostile to Westerners, particularly France.

“The government of Burkina Faso hereby informs the national and international community that it has decided to sever diplomatic relations with France with effect from today, June 26, 2026,” it announced in a statement read out on the west African nation’s national television.

The junta also accused France of harbouring “neo-colonial ambitions, made evident by its active support for subversive networks and the terrorists who are plunging our country and the Sahel into mourning”.

France called it a “hostile and baseless decision” that “illustrated the troubling drift of the Burkinabe authorities”, adding that “the necessary reciprocal measures are under review”.

Burkina Faso, like several of its neighbours, has for a decade been hit by deadly violence by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

According to the statement, this decision “concerns exclusively the institutional framework of relations between the two states at the diplomatic level”.

It “in no way calls into question the historical, human, cultural and social ties that unite the Burkinabe and French peoples”, the government said.

Anti‑French sentiment runs high in some former African colonies as the continent becomes a renewed diplomatic battleground, with Russian and Chinese influence growing.

Once master of vast expanses of northern, central and western Africa, France has played a crucial role in the continent’s post‑colonial history, repeatedly intervening militarily since the early 1960s.

France has vowed to abandon the so‑called “Francafrique” strategy, under which Paris sought to keep francophone Africa under its thumb through political collusion, exclusive access for French businesses and oblique financial deals including graft.