Tensions between the two countries have reached a peak. Burkina Faso’s military regime has announced that, with effect from Friday 26 June, it is “severing” diplomatic relations with France, which it accuses of “relentless activism” against its interests, following several years of severe tensions between the two countries. The junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, which has been in power since a coup in September 2022, pursues a policy of sovereignty, cracking down on any critical voices and taking a hostile stance towards the West, particularly France, the former colonial power. For its part, Paris has said it “regrets” this “hostile and unfounded decision”.
“The government of Burkina Faso hereby informs the national and international public that it has taken the decision to sever diplomatic relations with the French Republic with effect from today, 26 June 2026,” it stated in a communiqué read out on national television.
Burkina Faso’s military regime had already decided, in May, to ban the broadcast of the French television channel TV5 Monde, which it accused of “disinformation” and “glorifying terrorism”.
Did I say it was worse?
Not every bad thing needs to be compared to other bad things, especially when they are not necessary.
Things that are related via causal linkages do need to be compared. The crack down on expression is NOT being done for its own sake. It’s being done to reduce the influence of the French specifically and the West more generally because the neocolonial oppression of the West is a worse problem than the negative impacts of domestic repression of expression.
How do you know/prove that? How would you keep that from being misused?
You prove it by doing the experiment. All societies are experiments. We can look at history and see the impact that control over mass media (newspapers, journalism, radio, TV, etc), has had.
For example, we can see the impact that bourgeois-owned media has in contributing to the conditions for war as far back as the Opium Wars, at least. We see how the crackdown on expression in the US against communists during the multiple Red Scares had the measurable effect of completely disrupting the communist movement.
Historically we can see how effective control over expression is at achieving large political aims.
As for whether the French neocolonial rule is worse than repression of free expression, well, we just do that logically, since all Western imperialism includes repression of free expression AND bourgeois imperialist control over mass media. The fact that it ALSO includes mass murder, mass social murder, unequal exchange and wealth appropriation puts it squarely in a negative balance.