France is not boycotting African artists, says culture minister

ANKARA (AA) – France is not boycotting African artists, the country’s culture minister has said in response to reports of an order to stop cooperation.

French broadcaster BFMTV had reported that a government letter sent to the authorities on Thursday asked to stop collaboration with artists from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.

“I am extremely attached to the cultural ties that exist since long ago between those countries and France,” Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak told broadcaster RTL.

She claimed those ties had intensified over the recent years.

“But now there is a very specific security context, and it extremely deteriorated in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali,” the minister said.

“France had to minimize its staff in embassies and consulates and close visa services,” Malak said. “So physically, it is impossible to deliver visas to artists and any individual coming from those countries to France … We never boycott artists from anywhere.”

An art and culture enterprises union, Syndeac, and other peers expressed ire over a message that they claimed they received from the regional directorate of Culture Ministry, sent by the order of the Foreign Ministry.

“This letter with a threatening tone asked our members to ‘suspend until a new order all cooperation with the following countries: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso’,” the message said, according to Syndeac’s statement.

Niger was plunged into turmoil on July 26, when Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, a former commander of the presidential guard, led a military intervention that ousted unpopular and corrupt President Mohamed Bazoum who had been a close ally of France.

The furor against the French presence in the country provoked a row with Paris.

Military administrations had also taken power in neighboring Burkina Faso in 2022 and in Mali in 2020 in retaliation to former colonial power France’s intervention in the region for its own interests.