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Visas for students from Mali, Niger, or Burkina Faso who were planning to continue their studies in France are suspended due to the closure of French consular services in these countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced.
“The Campus France and visa services can no longer function normally,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AFP. Campus France, the French agency for promoting French higher education abroad and welcoming foreign students in France, clarified that scholarships granted to students from these three countries who are already in France “remain active.”
France currently has approximately 3,000 Malian students, 2,500 Burkinabe students, and 1,200 Nigerien students in its higher education institutions. Last Friday, the Ministry of Research and Higher Education stated to AFP that they were “forced to suspend our visa services and civil cooperation for security reasons.” However, “there is no question of stopping existing collaborations with universities or other scientific institutions.”
For security reasons, France has suspended visa issuance from Niamey, Ouagadougou, and Bamako since August 7. The past week saw protests from several professional unions in the cultural sector against a message they claim to have received on Wednesday “from the Drac,” the regional directorates of culture, “drafted on the instructions of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.”
“This threatening message instructs our members to ‘suspend,’ until further notice, any cooperation with the following countries: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso,” they stated in a press release. “When we say there will be no visas or that we will cancel all events involving artists from Burkina Faso, Mali, or Niger in France: it’s false, it won’t happen,” responded French President Emmanuel Macron. “There is no question of ceasing to exchange with the artists,” said Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak, although she reminded that new visas cannot be issued.
