On June 26, 2026, the military government of Burkina Faso stood on national television and announced, with immediate effect, that it was severing all diplomatic relations with France, the country that colonised it, the country that trained its early armies, the country that kept troops on its soil until 2023. By Monday, July 6, the last French diplomat had left Ouagadougou. And in Paris, Burkina Faso’s own diplomats were given seven days to pack their bags and leave France.
I want you to understand the full weight of what just happened between France and Burkina Faso, because it is bigger than one diplomatic rupture between two countries.
This is the story of a continent saying it is done being managed.
