Burkina Faso’s transitional government has ordered French troops to withdraw from its territory, saying its own forces would defend the country against the Islamist jihadis it has battled for almost a decade.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, spokesperson for the ruling military junta, said on Monday that the French soldiers had a month to leave the west African country. Burkina Faso and France signed an agreement in 2018 that allowed the former colonial power to fight the Isis and al-Qaeda-linked terror groups that control vast swaths of the country.

Ouedraogo said the command for French troops to leave was not triggered by any particular event, but was the “normal order of things”. He added that Burkina Faso still wanted military equipment from France, which has about 400 troops stationed at a base in Kamboinsin, 30km from the capital Ouagadougou. “This is not the end of diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France,” he said.

The withdrawal request is the latest sign of a deteriorating relationship between Burkina Faso and France since army captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in a coup in September. He ousted Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, a military officer, who himself overthrew the democratically elected president Roch Kaboré eight months earlier.

France’s foreign ministry said last month that it had received a letter from the regime demanding the departure of its ambassador. France declined to comment at the time on the ambassador’s status and whereabouts.

As Traoré’s putsch was unfolding last year, young men draped in Russian flags attacked the French embassy in Ouagadougou and a cultural centre in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city.

Some in Burkina Faso want to forge relations with “new partners”, a reference to Russia. Traoré said at the time that “there are many partners, France is a partner”.

Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo claimed last month that Burkina Faso had hired mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Akufo-Addo, who did not provide any evidence beyond a Moscow trip by Burkina Faso’s prime minister, further claimed that a mine in the south of the country had been given to the mercenaries as payment. Burkina Faso strenuously denied the allegations and summoned Ghana’s ambassador to Ouagadougou to clarify Akufo-Addo’s comments.

Mali, another former French colony battling an Islamist insurgency, also forced out French troops based there under its anti-terror Operation Barkhane. The soldiers went to Niger and Chad and the French operation was formally wound down.

A French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday that France had received “a verbal note sent to our embassy”, adding that it was still waiting for Traoré “to clarify the scope of this note.”

French President Emmanuel Macron had said on Sunday that he was seeking clarification after Burkina Faso’s state broadcaster reported the withdrawal order over the weekend. “We must stay very prudent, given the tendency of some in the region to manipulate or misinform,” Macron said.

Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris