At the request of the government of Burkina Faso, France is withdrawing its armed forces stationed in the West African country.

The French Foreign Ministry announced in Paris on Wednesday that the troops would leave the country within a month.

The former colonial power France is thus being pushed out of a second country in West Africa, after Mali, which is also increasingly looking to be closer to Russia.

On Tuesday, France received the formal denunciation of the 2018 agreement allowing the military presence in the country, the Foreign Ministry said.

According to the agreement, the termination will take effect after one month.

As the newspaper "Le Monde" wrote, a transfer of some soldiers to neighboring Niger is being considered.

About 2,000 French soldiers are currently stationed there.

France currently has around 400 soldiers stationed in Burkina Faso to help the former French colony of around 21 million people break free from the grip of armed groups.

Some of these have sworn allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) or the terrorist network Al-Qaeda.

Demonstrators wave Russian flags

Interim President Ibrahima Traoré has governed the unstable state in the Sahel since a military coup at the end of September.

Popular dissatisfaction with the previous government, which had close diplomatic ties with France, was growing due to instability and poverty.

In recent months there have been repeated demonstrations in Burkina Faso demanding the withdrawal of French armed forces.

During the coup, demonstrators also waved Russian flags.

Experts suspect that Moscow will try to exploit anti-French sentiment to gain influence in the country.

Almost a year ago, France ended the "Barkhane" combat operation in Mali after growing tensions with the government there.

The presence of Russian mercenaries in Mali also caused protests in France at the time.

Similar to the situation there, the government in Burkina Faso now seems to be looking for closer ties to Russia.

"Russia is a sensible choice in this regard (...), we think we should expand this partnership," Prime Minister of Burkina Faso Apollinaire Kyélem de Tembela said recently after a meeting with the Russian ambassador. In December was The Burkinabe head of government has been received in Moscow, and there is speculation that the government is getting closer to the Russian mercenary group Wagner.

France emphasizes that anti-French sentiment is being deliberately promoted by Russia, including through fake news on online networks.

Crude cartoons, for example, show French soldiers as skeletons being machine-gunned by Malian soldiers.

A muscular soldier with the Wagner badge and the Russian flag on his biceps supplies the ammunition for this.

Wagner mercenaries are also present in the Central African Republic, which signed an agreement on military cooperation with Russia in 2018.

The development could now continue in Burkina Faso.