French President Emmanuel Macron received Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for dinner on Thursday, during the latter’s first visit to Europe since the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This visit, which angers human rights defenders, is a step to “rehabilitate” the Saudi prince, who was shunned over the Khashoggi case. On the other hand, this visit comes within the framework of Western efforts aimed at getting closer to the largest oil exporting country in the world, in light of the Ukrainian war and the stalled talks to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran.
This visit comes less than two weeks after US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which returned “Mohammed bin Salman” to the international arena, in the midst of the war in Ukraine and high energy prices. Mohammed bin Salman, who started his mini-European tour from Greece, arrived at Orly Airport in Paris on Wednesday evening, where he was received by the French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, according to a government source.
And the French presidency had previously said in a statement that Macron, who is in Africa, will return on Thursday afternoon and will receive Mohammed bin Salman hours later at a working dinner Thursday evening at the Elysee.
According to a statement by the expert on the kingdom’s affairs at the Institute for European and American Studies Research, Cantan de Pemodan, to the French news agency, “Macron carried out the bulk of the rehabilitation work by personally visiting Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh last December,” adding, “Macron began the rehabilitation process.” And Biden completed it, and between them (Boris) Johnson,” who also visited Riyadh last March.
The US intelligence services had indicated that Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But Biden’s visit to the kingdom cemented the latter’s retreat from his campaign promise to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah”, and Mohammed bin Salman’s first move within the European Union angered human rights defenders.
In this context, Agnes Callamard, who led an investigation into the assassination of Khashoggi when she was the United Nations special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, told AFP, “The visit of Mohammed bin Salman to France and Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia does not change the fact that Mohammed bin Salman is nothing but a killer.” .
For her part, Benedict Jeanrod, France director of Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter, “It seems that Mohammed bin Salman can count on Emmanuel Macron to restore his reputation on the international stage despite the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi authorities’ harsh repression of any criticism and war crimes in Yemen.” . She added that the return of his favor with Western heads of state “raises more shock because many of them at that time expressed their disgust (at the killing) and their commitment not to return Mohammed bin Salman to the international community,” condemning the policy of “double standards.”
“The war in Ukraine has brought energy-producing countries back to the fore, and these countries are taking advantage of that,” said Camille Luns, associate researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She added that this “secures it a political lever that it will use to reassert its importance on the international stage.”
As for Western countries, they compete in “pragmatism,” according to her. She added that in the face of “exploding energy prices, it is clear that human rights in Saudi Arabia are no longer really a priority on the agenda.”
For her part, the French Prime Minister claimed that Macron’s reception of the Saudi crown prince “does not affect our commitment to human rights,” adding, while she was in the east of the country, that “of course, it does not mean that we put our principles aside, it does not affect our commitment to human rights. The President of the Republic will have an opportunity to discuss this issue with Mohammed bin Salman,” as she put it.
Source: France 24