France complies with the request of the Burkinabe authorities who had denounced the defence agreements between the two countries. French troops will therefore leave Burkina Faso within a month, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday 25 January 2023.

The ruling military junta in Burkina Faso confirmed on Monday its intention to end its military agreement with France. In response to this decision, the French authorities announced on Wednesday 25 January that the 400 members of the special forces who are stationed in a camp near Ouagadougou will be withdrawn.

“We have formally received (Tuesday) the denunciation by the Burkinabe government of the 2018 agreement on the status of French forces present in the country,” the French Foreign Ministry said.

“According to the terms of the agreement, the denunciation takes effect one month after receipt of the written notification. We will respect the terms of this agreement by following up on this request,” the ministry continued.

This is not a diplomatic breakdown

Contrary to the Malian authorities, the Burkinabe junta assures that the withdrawal of French forces is not synonymous with a diplomatic rupture between the two countries. “What we denounce is the agreement that allows French forces to be present in Burkina Faso. It is not the end of diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France,” convinced the spokesman for the Burkinabe government, Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo, in an interview with Radio-Television of Burkina (RTB) on Monday.

According to the Burkinabe authorities, “the denunciation of the agreement is in the normal order of things”, he said, adding that “the vision of the transition today is that it is the Burkinabe themselves who will make the sacrifice for the liberation of our territory. It should be noted that this decision comes in a context where the French presence is strongly contested in the streets of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso