OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from France’s ‘Le Monde’ and ‘Libération’ dailies, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.
Burkina Faso, which witnessed two coups last year, is battling an insurgency that spilled over from neighboring Mali in 2015.
“Our correspondent in Burkina Faso, Sophie Douce, has been expelled from the country ... at the same time as her colleague from ‘Libération’, Agnes Faivre,” “Le Monde” said on Sunday.
The women were summoned by authorities on Friday evening and given 24 hours to leave the country. They landed in Paris on Sunday morning, the paper said.
“Le Monde” said it “condemns in the strongest terms this arbitrary decision” and demanded the authorities rescind it.
Burkina government spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo wrote after the piece was published that “the government strongly condemns these manipulations disguised as journalism to tarnish the image of the country”.
The expulsions marked the latest move against media from former colonial power France by the military junta running Burkina Faso.
On Monday, it suspended all broadcasts by FRANCE 24, after the news channel interviewed the head of Al-Qaeda in North Africa, saying the interview was “part of a process of legitimizing the terrorist message and we know the effects of this message in this country”.
FRANCE 24 hit back, saying “the security crisis the country is going through must not be a pretext for muzzling the media”.
In December, the Burkina junta suspended Radio France Internationale (RFI), which belongs to the same France Medias Monde group as FRANCE 24, accusing the radio station of airing a “message of intimidation” attributed to a “terrorist chief”.
Soldiers in Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest nations, staged two coups in 2022 over the failure to tackle the threat from militant groups.
In December, the Burkina junta suspended Radio France Internationale (RFI), which belongs to the same France Medias Monde group as France 24, accusing the radio station of airing a “message of intimidation” attributed to a “terrorist chief”.
Burkina Faso, which scrapped a 1961 agreement on military assistance with France only weeks after it told the French ambassador and troops to quit the country, is battling extremist militants.
Bilateral ties between Burkina Faso and its former colonizer France have been strained following two military coups last year fueled in part by the failure of the government in protecting civilians from terrorist organizations in the Sahel region.
The decade-long militancy has caused significant instability not only in Burkina Faso, but also in neighboring Niger and Mali, the original epicenter of the insurgents.
Both France 24 and RFI, which cover African affairs and broadcast news in former French colonies in Africa, referred to as Françafrique, have been also suspended in Mali.
The militancy has taken on even greater proportions with the spillover effects of the crisis reaching neighboring West African littoral states such as Ivory Coast and Benin.