Burkina Faso: Three french diplomats declared persona Non Grata for « Subversive activities »
Three French nationals working at the French Embassy in Ouagadougou have until Thursday, April 18, to leave Burkinabe soil. They are « requested to leave the territory of Burkina Faso within the next 48 hours », specifies the note dated Tuesday. According to the Burkina Faso Information Agency (AIB), these diplomats are suspected of conducting « subversive activities ».
The Burkinabe transition government has ordered Gwenaïelle Habouzit, Guillaume Reisacher, and Hervé Fournier, all three diplomats at the French Embassy, to leave Burkina Faso. They have been declared « persona non grata », according to the note from government authorities. The reason being they are responsible for what are described as subversive activities.
It should be noted that diplomatic relations between Burkina Faso and France have been deteriorating since the arrival of Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power in Ouagadougou, due to his vision of leading the country to its sovereignty. A new dynamic that the former colonial power finds difficult to digest.
On December 1, 2024, four French officials—intelligence agents according to Burkinabe authorities, and IT maintenance technicians according to a French diplomatic source—were arrested in Ouagadougou, then indicted two weeks later and incarcerated, according to French sources.
They are currently under house arrest, according to Burkinabe security sources.
A year earlier, in December 2022, the Burkinabe government had expelled two French nationals working for a Burkinabe company, suspected by authorities of being spies. In January 2023, the country had demanded and obtained the departure of Ambassador Luc Hallade and the French military in February 2023. This was through the denunciation of military agreements signed with the former metropolis.
In March 2023 and September 2023, it was the turn of military cooperants and the military attaché to be pushed out of the country.
