France supports its ambassador in Burkina Faso after the request of the military junta for his replacement

Jan. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Government of France has expressed this Thursday its “support” for the French ambassador in Burkina Faso after the military junta has demanded that Paris replace him due to a “loss of trust”, amid the deterioration of bilateral relations.

“I express my support, our support, to our ambassador and to all the Embassy staff, who carry out a remarkable job in difficult conditions,” said the French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, in an interview with the chain of television LCI TV.

Thus, he has confirmed that the French Government “has received a letter with an unusual content that encourages the appointment of another ambassador”, something that he has described as “outside the usual practice”.

Colonna has also pointed to the existence of “an anti-French discourse” following the coup in January 2022 and has indicated that “there could be ties between this campaign and the Wagner Group, which has mercenaries who commit abuses and do not collaborate with the stability in the country, but to the predation of security and violence”.

France has been critical of the rapprochement between Ouagadougou and Moscow since the coup. Despite this, the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso, Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem de Tambela, recently invited Russia to “take its place” in the African country.

Burkina Faso, ruled by a military junta since the January 2022 coup against then-president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, has experienced increased insecurity since 2015. The junta is now headed by Ibrahim Traoré, who staged a coup in September which was considered a ‘palace coup’ against the hitherto leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

The attacks, carried out by both the Al Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State affiliate in the region, have also contributed to an increase in inter-communal violence and have caused self-defense groups to flourish, to which the Burkinabe government has added ‘volunteers ‘. The deterioration of security has caused a wave of internally displaced persons and refugees to other countries in the region.