1/ The new putschists of #BurkinaFaso still haven’t gotten their hands on Damiba, accusing France of hiding him in their base, which French officials deny. We must fear a skid when the coup plotters attack the Saber Special Forces base. pic.twitter.com/ge2J1RxsUA
— Matteo Maillard (@matteomaillard) October 1, 2022
Behind this statement is an implicit reference to Russia, whose flags have been sighted in Burkina for the past two days. “The putschists are very explicitly locating their actions in a split between Russia and France,” noted Yvan Guichaoua, an expert on the region at the University of Kent in Brussels on Saturday.
“It is very surprising to see the coup plotters so quick to declare their love for their privileged strategic partner. We could have imagined them taking power first and then raising the stakes,” he added on Twitter.
And the expert put forward two hypotheses: “Either cooperation with the Russians was the project from the start and we are dealing with a well-thought-out destabilization plan, or we opportunistically invoke the split between France and Russia to demand support for the… win a pitching project »
The French embassy in Ouagadougou was even attacked on Saturday. The slap is all the harder for Paris because it’s part of a strong trend.
“Denigrate the French presence”
In neighboring Mali, France used the Barkhane anti-jihadist force against groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for nine years before witnessing a 2020 double coup that placed soldiers in charge of its presence were openly hostile. Until President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French soldiers who are deployed elsewhere in the region.
At the same time, soldiers from the private Russian mercenary company Wagner settled in the country, although Bamako spoke only of “Russian instructors”. Since then, Moscow’s influence there has been growing, especially through social networks and Russian media.
A recent report by the Military School’s Institute for Strategic Research, under the French Defense Ministry, described the “spreading of online disinformation content in Mali, mostly aimed at denigrating the French presence and justifying the Russian one”.
He also noted the contagion in neighboring Burkina. “The land of honest men is now one of the African countries targeted” by Wagner, the authors wrote. Who has seen very strong growth in the number of viewers on the French-language pages of the Russian media RT and Sputnik for the past year.
Beyond the Sahel, the decline of France’s influence in West Africa, in the heart of what was once its “backyard,” is evident. “We are at the end of a cycle. If we continue along the same path, there is a great risk of France being strategically expelled from important spaces and major interests,” said Elie Tenenbaum, director of the Center for Security Studies at the French Institute for International Relations, last May.
The Breath of the Wind “France Releases”
“Democratic conditionality puts us at odds with regimes that are completely in retreat on this point and do not hesitate to assert competition with competitors that do not base their support on any internal criteria,” he added, referencing there on “the Russian offer”.
Paris left Mali, promising not to give up the fight against the jihadists who openly threaten the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. Talks are to be held between Paris and the African law firms, but France has insisted on discretion. “We are changing the paradigm […]. Today, operating with an armada is no longer up to date,” summarized Colonel Hubert Beaudoin, Barkhane’s deputy operations manager in Niamey, this summer.