Ouagadougou has demanded the departure of all French soldiers present in Burkina Faso and denounces a military cooperation agreement with France signed in 1961.
It is the end of an agreement that is more than sixty years old. In a press release, the Burkinabè Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests “the definitive departure of all French military personnel in service” in Burkina Faso within one month. An ultimatum that looks like it could be mistaken at the request of Bamako at the time ofdemand the departure of the soldiers of Operation Saber. But it is actually a question of denouncing another agreement, signed between France and Burkina Faso – which was called Upper Volta at the time – on… April 24, 1961.
That day, a "military technical assistance agreement" was signed between the two countries, while Upper Volta had obtained its independence a year earlier. The document, for example, provides for the presence of French aid workers in several sectors – defence, security and civil protection – in Burkina Faso. A sort of transfer of skills which has therefore lasted for six decades and which provides support, both financial and material and human, to the army of the West African country.
Agreements like this, France has signed several in Africa. Known as the "Franco-African defense and technical military assistance (AMT) agreements", they were signed at the time of independence, between June 22, 1960 and June 19, 1961 - in 1963 for Togo. They “constitute the strongest network and enshrine in the field the still very abstract notion of cooperation, writes researcher Camille Evrard. The challenge, among other things, is to obtain the signing of military cooperation agreements in the wake of the transfer of skills, in order to maintain the military structure of the late colonial organization transformed into a Community”.
Laboriously negotiated agreements
“In this sudden and precocious change that the Community is undergoing, the idea of military cooperation replaces that of de facto domination which until then characterized France's position. The arrangement imagined to allow African independence while providing tools of influence is based on the constitutional law of June 4, 1960, which provides for the possibility for States to become independent while signing accession agreements to the Community. called 'renovated'", continues the researcher.
Burkina Faso's argument is in line with the discourse adopted at the time of the request for the departure of the soldiers from Operation Saber: the country wants to regain its sovereignty, in terms of military security in particular. Nothing new: in the 1960s, several countries had reviewed their military agreements with France to regain, too, their sovereignty. Paris had then succeeded in keeping military troops on the continent “thanks to the bases negotiated, often laboriously”, indicates Camille Evrard.
Thus, in Mali and Madagascar for example, France signed a military agreement in June 1960 which, as indicated in a report by the French Senate at the time, allows French forces "to circulate freely on Malian and Malagasy territories". . In August 1960, the same kind of agreement was signed with Chad, the Central African Republic, Gabon and even Congo-Brazzaville.
Possibility of appealing to France
But, nuance the French researcher, "a distinction must be made between defense agreements, which establish the conditions for the intervention of French forces on the soil of the signatory States and those of AMT, which provide for the assistance necessary for the establishment of their national armies. Each former French colony, after its independence, managed to negotiate different agreements with Paris.
But in any case, the agreements, whether defense or technical military assistance, all stipulate the "duty of mutual assistance of the two countries to prepare and ensure their defense", but also the possibility of "calling to France", with the signature, in this case, of special agreements. In 2022, Mali had considered the French presence as "illegal" and contravening Malian sovereignty. A year later, Burkina Faso is also on this line. It is clear that the agreements of the 1960s gave back to the African countries concerned their sovereignty in matters of defence. Over time, France has apparently forgotten these agreements and has sometimes imposed itself without asking the opinion of the host countries.