“We are verifying the real work of these four French residents considered agents of the DGSE,” the Burkinabe source said, referring to France’s foreign intelligence service.

According to Jeune Afrique magazine, they were arrested in early December in the capital of Ouagadougou on spying accusations.

“Everything is being done to secure their release,” a French diplomatic source said.

The Burkinabe source added that “Togo is helping us to find a solution”.

Relations between Burkina Faso and former colonial power France plummeted after the military seized power in a 2022 coup, citing failing efforts to quash a jihadist insurgency that erupted in 2015.

The country’s military leaders, headed by Captain Ibrahim Traore, ordered the French forces that had been helping the anti-jihadist fight to quit the country in February this year.

More than 17,000 people have died in attacks in Burkina Faso since 2015, according to a count by a non-government organisation monitor called the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Two million people have been uprooted by the violence.