France

Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Paris and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO & ICESCO signs Schiller Institute petition

March 1, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Cultural renaissance updates, Culture, France, France SI activity, General, General updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

On Thursday February 29, 2024, in Paris, HE Mr Mohammad Homayoon Azizi, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Paris and UNESCO (on the right in the photo), added his signature to the Schiller Institute’s petition calling on the governments of the Western world to extend and strengthen cooperation in order to protect and preserve Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. H.E. Azizi added that he sincerely hopes that the 46th Session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, to be held in July this year in New Delhi, India, will contribute to strengthening relations in this field with his country. On the left, Karel Vereycken, representative of the Schiller Institute, warmly thanking the ambassador for his commitment.

Read and sign the petition here.

French “Food Production to Come to a Halt”

December 8, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Sanctions

Dec. 7, 2022 (EIRNS)–“Food production to come to a halt” was the title of an article published by Le Figaro back in Sept. Unfortunately, what seemed unbelievable for many yesterday, has become reality today. After heavy industries, such as the rare French zinc, aluminum, and glass producers –hit by impossible energy price spikes and artificially kept alive government support– agro-food processors are now on the chopping block.

Yesterday, the French canned food specialist Cofigeo which has a €300 million turnover, announced it will “temporarily” shut down 4 of its 8 factories in France as of Jan. 2, which represent about 80 % of its production. Consequently, 800 of the 1200 employees of Cofigeo will receive an agreement of partial activity of long duration (APLD).

The decision is an answer to “the dramatic increase in energy costs (gas and electricity needed for cooking and sterilization of dishes), which will be multiplied by 10 from the beginning of the year,” said the group in a statement. “It will go from 4 million to 40 million euros overnight,” Mathieu Thomazeau, its president, told Le Figaro.

This is a thunderclap in the food sector and other food groups could be in great difficulty in January. Everybody has warned this would happen but the government refuses to listen. Already in September, Le Figaro reported that “After the prices of electricity and natural gas supplying dairies, sugar factories and canneries in France have risen by 350% and 380% respectively in one year, the first cracks in the food industry are showing up.” At that time, dairy manufacturers warned that power cuts could lead them to throw milk away. The French giant dairy industry Lactalis’ energy bill reaches 1 billion euros per year. That of the Breton group Sill (Petit Basque, Malo …) has jumped 800% since 2021. In sugar factories, the fear of winter load shedding has led sugar producers to launch their beet harvesting and processing campaigns earlier, even if this means sacrificing yields.

Besides soaring energy costs, the other worry is that production lines simply will grind to a halt for lack of products coming from farms. In field vegetables (green beans, peas, etc.), due to the drought, harvests have melted by up to 50% this year. As a result, canneries that process and package them are now receiving only half of their needs. Already, some of them are only working three days a week. Enough to fear shortages on the shelves before the next harvest of 2023. In recent days, the fragile balance of the sector has become even more tense, with major risks of disruption on fertilizers for the next crop year. European fertilizer factories have stopped production of 50% of their products and have severely limited their production of ammonia due to the prohibitive price of gas. This raises the risk of shortages for the coming winter. To avoid total collapse, many sectors (milk, meat) plead to be recognized as “trades of general interest” and be exempted from energy rationing.

Anti-NATO Ferment Grows in Europe

October 10, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, France, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Germany, Russia, Sanctions, Ukraine, World war danger updates

Oct. 9 (EIRNS) — A large crowd, certainly many thousands judging from video of the event on Twitter, demonstrated in Paris today with the slogan “Let’s Get Out of NATO,” many waving the Tricolor. One person passing on the tweet said, “Tens of thousands in Paris say France must leave NATO.” [The Twitter video is here.]

In Italy, the popular governor of the Region Campania, Vincenzo De Luca, who is among the leaders of the Democratic Party, made a statement Oct. 7 against NATO. Taking distance from the war policy of his own party and of the Draghi government, De Luca made a strong demand that Italy stop being the passive appendage of NATO and take initiatives for peace, because, he emphasized, the alternative is a nuclear war.

“Since February 24 we have had an increasingly dramatic evolution of the war in Ukraine, we have been speaking out clearly about Russia’s responsibilities, we have been supporting Ukraine to defend itself. And in the last few days we have seen an unimaginable evolution and dramatization.” So said Vincenzo De Luca in his usual Friday Facebook live underlining that today “the hypothesis of the use of nuclear weapons has begun to circulate in a worrying way.” Therefore, according to De Luca this “obliges us to take mass initiatives in support of peace.”

“Italy and governments can no longer be a passive appendage of NATO, De Luca said. “We have the duty to reintroduce in the language of politics the word peace that has disappeared. And we have the duty, governments and parties, to tell the Italian people what is the goal we are pursuing because we are coming by force of inertia toward a dramatic social crisis and one step away from nuclear war…. The government and parties must say we are at war if the goal is Ukraine’s military victory; we cannot live in a war economy without saying so explicitly.”

In Berlin on Saturday, Oct. 8, a crowd which Deutsche Welle called “supporters of the far-right Alternativ fuer Deutschland (AfD) party” [quite a lot of them, from DW’s photo] demonstrated in front of the Reichstag building against rising inflation. A party leader, Tino Chrupalla, accused the German government of declaring economic war on Russia and waging war on its own people. He said, “the gas price will become normal again when we buy cheap gas from Russia.” Demonstrators chanted “Away with Habeck,” meaning Energy and Environment Minister Robert Habeck, a Green. Some 2,000 police were deployed around the rally, whose views were not expressed but would be interesting to know.

Franco-German call on France to Leave NATO and Bolster P5

February 12, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Germany, Global Diplomacy, World war danger updates

Paris, Feb. 12, 2022 (EIRNS) – In an op-ed published by the French “souverainist” weekly Marianne, Peter Dittus and Hervé Hannoun, argue in favor of a French exit from the integrated command of NATO. The German economist Peter Dittus is the former secretary general of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), while the Frenchmen Hannoun its deputy director general.

Their arguments are the substance of their new book called “OTANexit: Urgence Absolue”, published on Jan. 16.

“Since November 2021,” they say, “the French, like other peoples of the West, have been subjected to an unprecedented mental conditioning conducted by the United States and Nato on the theme of the “imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine”, which may go down in history as an episode of disinformation along the lines of the fabricated intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003.”

This is a lie, they say. “The only war that NATO seems to be winning is the one of information. We show in our book this striking German propaganda map in the weekly Bild of December 4, 2021, giving an imaginary detailed plan of the “imminent Russian invasion”. The role of propaganda is terrifying, because of the charge of hatred generated by the lies on both sides. On the NATO side, the aggressive and bellicose discourse of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is irresistibly reminiscent of the famous Orwellian inversion: ‘peace is war’”. (…) “France’s current alignment with NATO, through its participation in the integrated military command under American leadership, is a strategic dead end for a country with a universal vocation like France. Today, this country has a historic role to play in stopping the march towards war in Europe initiated by the sleepwalkers of NATO. France’s exit from NATO, which will mark the end of the alignment of France’s foreign security policy with the United States, will have an immense impact on the world.”

“It will signal Europe’s independence from American exceptionalism, the renewal of multilateralism, the emergence of a multipolar world and the rapid demise of the obsolete NATO framework. France will then rediscover its universal vocation, contributing to the global balance for peace, and playing, thanks to its rediscovered impartiality, a role of synthesis within the P5, the concert of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France), a P5 whose composition must be maintained and whose role as regulator of world peace must be enhanced.”

Full text of Marianne op-ed:

“Faced with the Ukrainian crisis, France’s NATO exit is an absolute emergency”

The following op-ed was published by the French “souverainist” weekly Marianne, Peter Dittus and Hervé Hannoun, who argue in favor of a French exit from the integrated command of NATO. The German economist Peter Dittus is the former secretary general of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), while the Frenchmen Hannoun its former deputy director general. Text:

“Breaking with the policy of non-alignment followed by de Gaulle, Giscard and Mitterrand for 43 years, France once again became a member of the integrated military command of NATO in 2009, without the French people having been consulted by referendum. The current Ukrainian crisis reveals the serious perils to which France is exposed by being attached to a defensive collective security organization under the command of the United States that has become expansionist.

“Since November 2021, the French, like other peoples of the West, have been subjected to an unprecedented brainwashing (“mise en condition”) conducted by the United States and Nato on the theme of the “imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine”, which may go down in history as an episode of disinformation along the lines of the fabricated intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

“What is the reality? Millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the two self-proclaimed Donbass people’s republics live under sporadic firing and shelling by the Ukrainian army against separatist forces. The concentration of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders is obviously aimed at dissuading Kiev from attempting to regain direct control of the enclaves of Donetsk and Lugansk by force. NATO’s successful disinformation on Ukraine has consisted in presenting Putin’s moral obligation to defend these Russian-speaking populations – which Ukraine wants to progressively deprive of the right to speak their language – as a prelude to the total annexation of Ukraine by Russia.
The myth of an “imminent Russian invasion

“NATO manages to pass off a concentration of Russian troops ready to come to the rescue of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass as an “imminent Russian invasion” of the whole of Ukraine, including Odessa, Kharkiv and Kiev. A crazy invasion that in reality Russia completely rules out… unless it is pushed into it by a possible prior Ukrainian attack on the Donbass.

“The only war that NATO seems to be winning is the one of information. We show in our book this striking German propaganda map in the weekly Bild of December 4, 2021, giving an imaginary detailed plan of the “imminent Russian invasion”. The role of propaganda is terrifying, because of the charge of hatred generated by the lies on both sides. On the NATO side, the aggressive and bellicose discourse of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is irresistibly reminiscent of the famous Orwellian inversion: “peace is war”.

And if France had the solution?

Paris must avoid the military spiral into which the United States and NATO want to drag it. In the coming weeks, it must not allow itself to be involved in a war in Eastern Europe that is not its own. France has already agreed to deploy hundreds of men in a NATO battle group in Estonia. On January 1, it took the lead in the NATO Rapid Response Force, which includes at least 7,700 French soldiers. President Macron has just announced the possible dispatch of a thousand French troops to Romania under the NATO banner on the “eastern flank”, in the Black Sea region. The military escalation is dangerous. For the security of the French people, it is necessary to exclude committing the French army under the banner of Nato in a war in Ukraine or Belarus.

“On the other hand, France has a diplomatic weapon to resolve the serious crisis between NATO and Russia. The detonator of this crisis was the stubbornness of Jens Stoltenberg and the Americans to pursue since 2018 a creeping process of accession of Ukraine to NATO, called “open door policy”, seen by Russia as a threat to its security. To put an end to the current confrontation, President Macron should simply declare solemnly in the name of France that his country will oppose any request from Ukraine to join NATO.

“As decisions on membership of the Alliance require unanimity, France can exercise a veto. In doing so, the president would be in line with the commitments he made during his 2017 presidential campaign not to support NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. It would be an elegant way out of the crisis. Alas, the French president, during his visit to Moscow and then to Kiev on February 7 and 8, 2022, did not consider this simple solution because French diplomacy did not oppose in the NATO bodies the crazy “open door policy” to the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. On the other hand, France supports NATO and the G7 in their demand for the return of Crimea to Ukraine, knowing full well that this cannot be done without a war, possibly nuclear.

American subordination

“At the time of the 1992 referendum on the European Union treaty, no one could have imagined that this great project of Mitterrand and Kohl for peace would be deviated from, from 1998 onwards, by the American geopolitical project to take de facto control of the European common defense and security policy. This was due to the simultaneous enlargement of the European Union and NATO to ten Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2007, and also to President Sarkozy’s decision, with far-reaching consequences, to abandon in 2008 the Gaullist strategic position of refusing to participate in NATO’s integrated military command.

“From the moment that 21 of the 27 EU countries, including France, became full members of NATO, the initial spirit of Maastricht was betrayed, because “Europe for peace” was inevitably going to be thwarted by the interference of the United States, with its own geopolitical objectives, in the common European defense and security policy. In reality, there can be no independent French or European defense within the current framework of participation in the integrated military command of NATO by France and 21 other European Union states. The concept of “European strategic autonomy” within Nato is an illusion, given the control of the United States over this Alliance. The European Union seeks to hide this fundamental flaw behind a vague concept: the “strategic compass”.

The fundamental incompatibility between the US-controlled NATO and an independent French or European defense does not prevent our leaders from defending the thesis of complementarity between the EU and NATO in terms of defense, as summarized on December 11, 2021 by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs: “We are keen for the EU and NATO to complement and reinforce each other in order to contribute to strengthening security and defense in Europe. This is the meaning of the strategic compass that will be adopted during the French Presidency of the EU Council.

Defense: the impasse of “at the same time”

The EU’s “strategic compass” is above all an effort to provide a conceptual framework for the false idea that “European strategic autonomy” in relation to the United States is compatible with the Nato membership of the vast majority of EU member states. This complementarity between NATO and the EU, the “at the same time” applied to defense, is an illusion. The fussy logic of national independence has given way to the vague and misleading concept of strategic autonomy and the search for interdependence and interoperability with our “allies”.

“Beyond the immediate crisis surrounding Ukraine, the presidential elections of April 10 and 24 must allow for a decision on the question of NATO. All those who refuse NATO’s march towards the war that is brewing on the eastern borders of the European Union have a unique opportunity, with the presidential election of 2022, to send a simple and clear message of peace to the leaders of our country, in one word: Otanexit. It is a question of ensuring that a candidate for peace is elected president, who is committed to putting an end to France’s alignment with NATO.

“One can think that the outgoing president will want to avoid a debate in the presidential campaign on the question of our military alliances in NATO: alliance with the adventurism of the Anglo-Saxons, whose arrogance was revealed by the Australian submarine affair, unnatural alliance with Islamist Turkey, alliance with Polish nationalism, and tomorrow perhaps, alliance with a Germany that could use NATO as a springboard for its remilitarization, or even alliance with Kosovo against Serbia This list alone allows us to measure the risks of a collective security system comprising 30 heterogeneous nations, and dominated by one of them.

An unconstitutional “defense union”

“On January 7, 2022, at a joint press conference with President Macron in Paris, the President of the European Commission allowed herself a federalist statement that exceeded her prerogatives: “We agree that we need a real defense union. In the presence of President Macron, she spoke of adding a “defense union” to the Economic and Monetary Union in the future, without taking into account the fact that this statement is contrary to the French Constitution, which is based on national independence, national sovereignty and national defense. It is necessary to oppose the stealthy European federalism that is currently being practiced, which cannot replace a federalism that is democratically accepted – or rejected – by referendum, according to the procedure followed in 1992 by François Mitterrand for the transfer of monetary sovereignty provided for in the Maastricht Treaty. The French people must reject the concept of defense union under the banner of NATO that Ursula von der Leyen wants to impose on them.

“France’s current alignment with NATO, through its participation in the integrated military command under American leadership, is a strategic dead end for a country with a universal vocation like France. Today, this country has a historic role to play in stopping the march towards war in Europe initiated by the sleepwalkers of NATO. France’s exit from NATO, which will mark the end of the alignment of France’s foreign security policy with the United States, will have an immense impact on the world.

“It will signal Europe’s independence from American exceptionalism, the renewal of multilateralism, the emergence of a multipolar world and the rapid demise of the obsolete NATO framework. France will then rediscover its universal vocation, contributing to the global balance for peace, and playing, thanks to its rediscovered impartiality, a role of synthesis within the P5, the concert of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France), a P5 whose composition must be maintained and whose role as regulator of world peace must be enhanced.”

Putin Asks: Does NATO Really Want To Fight Nuclear Power Russia?

February 9, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, World war danger updates

Feb. 8, 2022 (EIRNS)—President Vladimir Putin reported in his opening remarks to the joint press conference following lengthy talks with President Macron, that the two had “continued to exchange views on the proposals regarding long-term legally binding security guarantees, which Russia has made to the United States and NATO,” and also discussed at length the battle over the Minsk agreements.

He opened his remarks on their discussion of Russia’s security guarantees proposals, “remind[ing] everyone that these proposals include three key points: NATO’s non-expansion, non-deployment of offensive weapon systems near the Russian border, and the return of the bloc’s European capabilities and infrastructure to the 1997 level, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.”

His reiteration of Russia’s “categorical” opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion through the admission of new members, particularly Ukraine, in response to questions from French reporters, however, was dramatic:

“Why is Ukraine’s potential admission into NATO dangerous? The problem does exist. For example, European countries, including France, believe that Crimea is part of Ukraine, but we think that it is part of the Russian Federation. And what happens if attempts are made to change this situation by military means? Bear in mind that Ukraine’s doctrines declare Russia an adversary and state the possibility of regaining Crimea, even using military force. Just imagine what could happen if Ukraine were a NATO member. Article 5 has not been canceled. On the contrary, Mr. Biden, the President of the United States, has said recently that Article 5 is a sacred obligation and will be honored. This is fraught with a military confrontation between Russia and NATO… Ask your readers, your audiences, and the users of online resources, ‘Do you want France to fight against Russia?’ Because this is how it will be….

Asked again, he reminded another French reporter that Russia is a nuclear power:

“Do you realize that if Ukraine joins NATO and decides to take Crimea back through military means, the European countries will automatically get drawn into a military conflict with Russia? Of course, NATO’s united potential and that of Russia are incomparable. We understand that, but we also understand that Russia is one of the world’s leading nuclear powers, and is superior to many of those countries in terms of the number of modern nuclear force components. But there will be no winners, and you will find yourself drawn into this conflict against your will. You will be fulfilling Paragraph 5 of the Treaty of Rome in a heartbeat, even before you know it.

“Of course, the President does not want to see developments unfold in this way. I do not want it, either. That is why he is here and has been tormenting me for six hours now with his questions, guarantees, and solutions.

“I believe his is a lofty mission, and I am grateful to him for his efforts. For our part, we will do our best to find compromises that suit everyone. There is not a single point that we consider unachievable in the proposals we sent to NATO and Washington.”

UN Security Council Unanimously Pushes for Afghan Political Solution

August 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, China, France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, United States, World war danger updates

UN Security Council Unanimously Pushes for Afghan Political Solution—

Aug. 4 (EIRNS)—In New York, the UN Security Council unanimously issued a press statement condemning deliberate attacks on civilians in Afghanistan and all instances of terrorism “in the strongest terms” on Aug. 3, while declaring its opposition to restoration of rule by the Taliban, reported The Associated Press. The council called on the Afghan government and the Taliban “to engage meaningfully in an inclusive, Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process in order to make urgent progress towards a political settlement and a ceasefire.” The council statement also expressed “deep concern” at the high levels of violence and reported serious human rights abuses in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s offensive. It urged an immediate reduction in violence.

It is noteworthy that the U.S., China and Russia (as well as the U.K. and France) all agreed with this perspective on Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani by phone yesterday to press for a political settlement and lecture Ghani on democracy and human rights.

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told TOLOnews in an Aug. 2 interview that the Taliban enjoys the support of foreign terrorists in Afghanistan. “The Taliban relies on the support of foreign terrorists and mainly aims to attack cities,” he said. “Afghanistan’s international allies hold the same opinion.”

“Two important encounters will take place in Doha (Qatar) in the coming days: One with our regional allies and the other with international allies in the format of the Extended Troika,” comprised of Russia, the United States, China and Pakistan, Atmar continued. “We are turning to the international community with a request to exert pressure on the Taliban so that this movement observes human rights. Up to now, the Taliban has been brutally assaulting civilians.”

On the ground, heavy fighting reportedly continues in both Herat in western Afghanistan and in the southern province of Helmand. Several airstrikes were reportedly launched by Afghan and U.S. air forces since Tuesday night (Aug. 3), according to security sources. The commander of the Army’s 215 Maiwand Corps, Gen. Sami Sadat, called on residents in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, to evacuate their homes as the army was preparing for a large-scale operation to clear the city of the Taliban. However, as of the latest reports, the army had not made much progress beyond controlling government buildings.