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Burkina Faso announced the end of the military arrangement that allowed French special forces to use its territory as a base to fight Islamist insurgents, as the west African country seeks closer alignment with other partners, notably Russia.
The general staff of the Burkinabe armed forces said that a “flag-lowering ceremony marking the official end of the [French] task force’s operations on Burkinabe soil” had taken place over the weekend at the French special forces camp about 30km from the capital, Ouagadougou.
Burkina’s transitional government, led by army captain Ibrahim Traoré, asked France to withdraw a month ago, saying its own troops would defend the country against the Islamist militants that have troubled the Sahel nation and the wider region for almost a decade. Traoré has opened the door to new partners, with some in Burkina calling on the country to align itself with Russia.
The end of the French mission underlines the deteriorating relations between Burkina and its former colonial power. It follows the end of the decade-long French anti-insurgency deployment across the Sahel called Operation Barkhane that led to the withdrawal of French troops from Mali.
France’s withdrawal comes as Wagner Group, a Russian private military company founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has established a presence in several African countries, notably Mali.
French President Emmanuel Macron has voiced concern about Russia’s growing influence in Africa, using a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday to call Wagner “a new mafioso tool used [by Russia] to create crimes and injustice”. Macron will this month visit Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, as Paris seeks to recalibrate its relationships on the continent.
The French defence ministry declined to comment on the status of the troops in Burkina, saying only that France respected its engagements with partner countries.
Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, French minister for development, Francophonie and international partnerships, said over the weekend that Burkina’s choice to end their agreement was a matter of “sovereignty”. She added that she had discussed the bilateral relationship during a trip to Burkina in January, including during a meeting with Traoré.
The Burkina deal signed in 2018 allowed French troops into the country to fight Isis and al-Qaeda-linked combatants. Although France does not disclose troop numbers, 400 were thought to be based there prior to the request to leave.
Although Burkina has said it still wants military equipment from France, the relationship between both nations has worsened since Traoré took over in a coup in September. He ousted military officer Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who himself overthrew the democratically elected president Roch Kaboré eight months earlier.
Protesters have urged Traoré and the country’s transitional leadership to engage more deeply with Moscow, with Russian flags often waved at rallies. Prigozhin has praised the coup leaders, although analysts have expressed scepticism over how much his group could achieve considering the security situation in Mali has worsened since Wagner’s arrival.
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo claimed in December, without any proof beyond a trip by the Burkinabe prime minister to Moscow, that Burkina had hired Wagner fighters, although Burkina strongly rejected the allegations.
Burkina, alongside the military juntas in Guinea and Mali, has sought to reintegrate into Ecowas, the regional bloc from which they were expelled after their respective coups. Ecowas declined to lift sanctions on the three countries and imposed a travel ban on government and senior officials of the regimes following a meeting over the weekend on the sidelines at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
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