OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Burkina Faso\u2019s military government severed diplomatic ties with France, its former colonial ruler that had been a key security partner for the West African nation before relations fractured.<\/p>\n
The junta said in a statement Friday that it broke off relations with France effective immediately, accusing it of \u201cblatant neo-colonial ambitions and active support for subversive networks and terrorists,\u201d without providing evidence.<\/p>\n
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said in a statement that his country regrets the \u201chostile and unfounded decision, which illustrates the worrying drift of the Burkinab\u00e8 authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNecessary reciprocal measures are currently under review,\u201d he said. Confavreux added that France is monitoring the safety of French government personnel and citizens in Burkina Faso and urged them to exercise heightened vigilance.<\/p>\n
The West African country of 23 million people has been battered by years-long violence perpetrated by extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda and the militant group Islamic State, as well as government forces often accused of extrajudicial killings. Its wider Sahel region is the world\u2019s deadliest area for extremism.<\/p>\n
It was unclear what would follow the end of diplomatic relations or how the French Embassy in Burkina Faso would be affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conditions essential for fostering relations based on mutual respect, reciprocal trust, and respect for the principle of non-interference in internal affairs and national sovereignty are no longer met,\u201d Burkina Faso\u2019s Communications Minister Pingdwende Gilbert Ouedraogo said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The two sides have endured years of severed relations before. <\/p>\n
Burkina Faso\u2019s military government has in the past targeted foreign diplomats, including the French, whom it has often accused of working against its interests. In 2023, the junta asked France to recall its ambassador and declared the United Nations\u2019 resident and humanitarian coordinator in the country persona non grata, while in 2024, it expelled three French diplomats for alleged subversive activities.<\/p>\n
France was Burkina Faso\u2019s major security partner until a 2022 coup. The junta then sacked hundreds of French forces sent to fight extremist groups.<\/p>\n
The violence has worsened under the military government that had promised to curb it, analysts say.<\/p>\n
In the two years following the coup, Burkina Faso forces allegedly killed twice as many civilians as extremists, according to a recent report by the Human Rights Watch, which blamed government forces for at least 1,200 of the 1,837 killings of civilians in the country between January 2023 and August 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Burkina Faso\u2019s military government severed diplomatic ties with France, its former colonial ruler that had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9566,23819,29071,29065,29072,29066,5,29067,29074,29070,29073,7955,10473,29068,29069],"class_list":["post-42611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-burkina-faso","tag-country","tag-coup","tag-diplomatic-relation","tag-extrajudicial-killing","tag-extremist-group","tag-france","tag-junta","tag-key-ally","tag-key-security-partner","tag-many-civilian","tag-military-government","tag-mutual-respect","tag-statement-friday","tag-west-african-nation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}