VIDEO. Coup in Burkina Faso: France taken to task, junta leader Ibrahim Traoré calls for calm

Nearly two days after the announcement of the dismissal of the leader of the ruling junta, tension remained high on Sunday in Burkina Faso where protesters attacked France, pushing the new self-proclaimed strongman, Captain Ibrahim Traoré , to call for an end to violence against French representatives in the country.

A few dozen demonstrators supporting Ibrahim Traoré gathered outside the French embassy in Ouagadougou, setting fire to protective barriers and throwing stones inside the building on the roof of which were positioned French soldiers, other pulling barbed wire in an attempt to scale the perimeter wall of the diplomatic building.

Tear gas was fired from inside the embassy to disperse protesters, he also noted.

In a press release read Sunday by one of his relatives on national television, Captain Traoré, who was at his side, called on the demonstrators to "divest themselves of any act of violence and vandalism (...) in particular those who could be perpetrated against the French embassy or the French military base" in Ouagadougou.

He called for “calm and restraint”.