On Monday, the military administration of Burkina Faso suspended France 24 broadcast operations in the country after the TV channel aired an interview with Yezid Mebarek, the leader of al-North Qaida’s African branch.

Earlier this month, France 24, a French-funded TV channel, aired an interview with Mr Mebarek, popularly known as Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, after a French troop operation that killed his predecessor.

According to a statement by Burkina Faso’s minister of communication, Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo, the France 24 operations were shut down for providing a platform for the legitimisation of terrorist actions and hate speech in its country.

“France 24 is not only acting as a mouthpiece for these terrorists, but worse, it is providing a space for the legitimisation of terrorist actions and hate speech,” Mr Ouedraogo said in the statement published on Voice of America (VOA).

In response to the action, France 24 described the move as based on “unfounded accusations.”

“The channel never gave him the floor directly,” France 24 said in a statement. It added that it chose to report what the interviewee said through a studio conversation with one of its journalists.

According to reports, since the military seized control in a coup last October, relations between the French government and the Burkina Faso military government in West Africa have been worse. 

In January, the Burkina Faso military government terminated a military agreement that had authorised French troops to battle militants in its territory – giving the French military a one-month notice to withdraw its troops from its soil.

In December, Radio France International, a radio station similarly funded by the French government, had its transmissions banned in Burkina Faso due to what the military government deemed to be false reporting and providing a voice to Islamist extremists.