But the country’s opposition said it feared the step was a precursor to more authoritarian rule and the main trade union vowed to hold further street protests if the government did react within days to its appeals for anti-poverty measures.
Compaore has ruled the top regional cotton-producer since a 1987 coup but growing popular anger at rising food prices and an unprecedented string of violent protests by soldiers have posed the most serious threat yet to his authority.
“I believe the Burkinabe are aware that we must advance, that we have to find solutions to this crisis,” Compaore told reporters on Friday after his appointment was announced by decree late on Thursday.
“We need more dialogue between citizens and government.”
The decree also set up a new government line-up after he sacked his entire cabinet and top military brass last Friday. Luc Adolphe Tiao, Burkina’s 56-year-old ambassador to France, was appointed as the new prime minister.
Compaore won a new five-year term after taking 80 percent of the votes in an election last November, but critics say the vote was unfair, estimating barely 3 million out of around 8 million eligible voters managed to register to take part.
“When they speak about dialogue, with whom do they mean?” Benewende Stanislas Sankara, head of the opposition coalition, told reporters in the capital Ouagadougou.
“In any case they didn’t consult us,” he said of a government line-up he described as “militarist”.
“This is quite clearly a sign that we are dealing with a government of repression,” Bassolma Bazie, deputy general secretary of the CGT-B trade union federation said by telephone.
“I do not see anything that has changed,” he added, saying that his group would hold a May 1 protest march if the new government had not by then addressed grievances ranging from low salaries to high taxes on essential goods.
Compaore’s own presidential guard took part in the latest unrest last week, firing weapons in the air in Ouagadougou, looting shops and commandeering vehicles.
Shopkeepers have taken to the streets demanding state compensation for the damage, while students have in past weeks clashed with security forces in protests over the death of a school pupil following a spell in police custody.