Tensions between the two countries have reached a peak. Burkina Faso’s military regime has announced that, with effect from Friday 26 June, it is “severing” diplomatic relations with France, which it accuses of “relentless activism” against its interests, following several years of severe tensions between the two countries. The junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, which has been in power since a coup in September 2022, pursues a policy of sovereignty, cracking down on any critical voices and taking a hostile stance towards the West, particularly France, the former colonial power. For its part, Paris has said it “regrets” this “hostile and unfounded decision”.
“The government of Burkina Faso hereby informs the national and international public that it has taken the decision to sever diplomatic relations with the French Republic with effect from today, 26 June 2026,” it stated in a communiqué read out on national television.
Burkina Faso’s military regime had already decided, in May, to ban the broadcast of the French television channel TV5 Monde, which it accused of “disinformation” and “glorifying terrorism”.
We should go to Burkina Faso and bring back and enforce democracy.
Not to say the current military regime is a good thing, but it’s not like the French have treated France Afrique countries with good intentions since decolonisation. Surely the people there are more fucked now then 5-10 years ago, and fuck Russia and China for their part in this, but the people of Burkina Faso have been fucked way before that 2022 coupe the article mentions.
Surely the people there are more fucked now then 5-10 years ago,
I’m admittedly not well-informed on this, but what do you base this on? Democracy is nice to have, but its absence does not automatically make someone more or less fucked, especially with the various elephants in the room that show up when talking about a poor country in Africa.
Thanks for calling me out on this; because you are right that just the fact of there being democracy alone does not say anything about how fucked an individual is. I based my statements on news that reached me from various sources, and while it’s too big a task to dig up those articles, I looked up some of the data to check how right I am. Turns out the people are mainly more fucked when it comes to political rights and civil liberties, less so when it comes to other important things.
Freedom House gives countries a ‘Freedom in the World’-score from 0-100, the oldest record for Burkina Faso is from 2017 (https://freedomhouse.org/country/burkina-faso/freedom-world/2017), and from then on it’s score decreases each year from 63/100 to 20/100 this year. If you’re genuinely interested please check all data there.
Healthwise, people aren’t as clearly less or more fucked then before; child mortality is still declining, and life expectancy is still increasing based on data from the WHO (https://data.who.int/countries/854). If you look at the graph there on Universal Health Coverage and Health Emergency Protection you can see a sharp decline in 2023, but a steady increase before the military coup which seems to be continuing from a lower base.
Economically it is also not as clearly good or bad. based on info from the world bank (https://data.worldbank.org/country/burkina-faso), gdp is increasing and poverty is declining. There was a sharp increase in inflation around the time of the coup, but at the same time unemployment decreased.
In case there is a tankie in the comments, yes these are all western institutions, i don’t care if you believe the data to be untrustworthy because i do trust the data despite their questionable impact on (some parts of) the globe.
What did France do that their support for fighting islamists was seen as counterproductive?
A coup d’état took place in Burkina Faso on 30 September 2022, removing Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba over his alleged inability to deal with the country’s Islamist insurgency. Damiba had come to power in a coup d’état eight months earlier.
The January coup had been motivated by the Burkinabe government’s inability to contain the jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso.
Several of the officers who had supported the January coup became dissatisfied with Damiba’s rule, later claiming that he had not focused enough on defeating the insurgents and instead pursued his own goals.[2] These disgruntled officers were mainly young and served directly at the frontlines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September 2022_Burkina_Faso_coup_d’état
While the insurgency seems to match the Tuareg territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Sahel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people
So did France try to maintain the usual colonial border conflicts?
Cracking down on critical voices sounds very bad.
Yeah it’s… really not looking great there right now. Hope everyone who needs to get out is able to before this gets worse :/
Hells yeah!
Burkina Faso, Best Faso
