The correspondents of the French dailies Le Monde and Liberation in Burkina Faso were expelled from this country on Saturday evening, their editorial staff announced on Sunday, denouncing an "unacceptable" and "arbitrary" measure.
"Our correspondent in Burkina Faso, Sophie Douce, has just been expelled from the country [...] at the same time as her colleague from Liberation, Agnès Faivre", indicates Le Monde on its site. "The sanction has fallen and, with it, the confirmation that the freedom of the press in Burkina Faso is seriously threatened", writes for his part Liberation, specifying that his correspondent and his colleague from Le Monde arrived "Sunday morning in Paris" .
On Monday, Burkina Faso, ruled by authorities from two coups in 2022 and facing a proliferation of deadly jihadist attacks, cut the broadcast of the French news channel France 24 on its territory. Only French media have so far been sanctioned by the Burkinabe authorities.
Since the seizure of power by Captain Ibrahim Traoré on September 30, 2022, the second coup in eight months in Burkina, relations with Paris have deteriorated, Ouagadougou having demanded and obtained the departure of the French ambassador and the 400 French special forces soldiers based in the country.
In early March, Burkina also denounced a military assistance agreement signed in 1961 with France.
Le Monde "condemns in the strongest terms this arbitrary decision" which forced the two journalists to leave Ouagadougou in less than twenty-four hours. "Sophie Douce, like her colleague, exercises independent journalism for Le Monde Afrique, free from any pressure," he adds.
The newspaper's director, Jérôme Fenoglio, "asks the local authorities to reverse these decisions as soon as possible and to immediately restore the conditions for independent information in the country".
According to Liberation, "Agnès Faivre and Sophie Douce are journalists of perfect integrity, who worked in Burkina Faso legally, with valid visas and accreditations issued by the Burkinabe government. »
"We strongly protest against these absolutely unjustified expulsions and the ban on our journalists working independently," the newspaper added.
The two journalists had been summoned to Ouagadougou on Friday by national security and were then ordered to leave Burkina Faso within 24 hours.
Liberation specifies "that the publication on March 27 of [its] investigation into the circumstances in which a video was filmed showing children and adolescents executed in a military barracks, by at least one soldier, had obviously greatly displeased the junta in power in Burkina Faso".
"The government strongly condemns these manipulations disguised as journalism to tarnish the image of the country of honest men," Burkinabe government spokesman Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo wrote after the publication of this investigation, assuring that the army is acting " in strict compliance with international humanitarian law”.
At the beginning of December, the ruling junta had already suspended the broadcasting of Radio France Internationale (RFI), from the same group as France 24, France Médias Monde. Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo had indicated that these two media were accused of having "opened their antennas to terrorist leaders so that they propagate the ideology of terrorism, violence, division".
The Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Christophe Deloire, denounced to AFP this double expulsion "arbitrary, scandalous, unworthy, which is not even notified in writing publicly".
"After the dismissal of the ambassador, we are in a logic of the dismissal of journalists as if they were a variable of adjustment of the diplomatic tensions: it is absurd", he added, affirming that "the regime wants cover up his abuses".
