Oui les diplomates français savent tout (Alain Combe, DEMAIN ONLINE, referring to his torture in Moroccan prison) YES, FRENCH DIPLOMATS KNOW IT ALL. Epilogue: A Silent and Guilty France. France: Deaf, Dumb, and Blind By constituting a veritable parallel government in order to oppose and humiliate the new Prime Minister that he named, Mohammed VI demonstrates his political immaturity. He also shows that he will be, from that moment on, running against the grain of the hopes and base movements tearing at the social fabric in Arab and Muslim countries. These disturbing signals hardly made a dent in Frances enthusiasm for Morocco, seen as a stable kingdom. No more than did the fact that a young unemployed graduate, Abdelwahab Zeidoun, set himself on fire and perished from his burns several days later. In reality, the Palace was sending contradictory signals. To everyones surprise, in February 2012, a royal pardon was bestowed on such diverse personalities as radical islamists, the boxer ZAKARIA MOUMNI and….the ex-banker Khalid Oudghiri to whom we referred at length earlier. Jacques Chirac, then Nicolas Sarkozy never stopped singing the praises of Mohammed VI and Franco-Moroccan friendship the stakes of which, in particular economic, no longer were particularly significant. In September 2011, when work on the TGV kicked off in Tangiers, in the presence of Mohammed VI, Nicolas Sarkozy declared the following: France has had numerous occasions to show the extent to which she acknowledged the vision expressed by the king; how much she takes pleasure in the exceptional success of the referendum concerning the Constitution and Moroccos continuing advances towards democracy. A speech that turns a blind eye and recalls the one given by that same President during a State visit to Tunisia in April 2008. Jean-David Lévitte, the diplomatic advisor at the Elysée, held forth however, that of the three countries in the Maghreb, Tunisia [was] the one with which we [maintain] the most peaceful relations. Will it be the same thing with Morocco, at a time when the main concern of the French ambassador to Rabat, the ex Mister Africa of Nicolas Sarkozy, Bruno Joubert, is to sell nuclear energy to Moroccans? After the TGV, the EPR…. In reality, Franco-Moroccan relations have become pointless. Paris and Rabat scarcely hold any interest for each other. The Moroccan regime is distancing itself inexorably from Paris, without, in so doing, making sure it has another support system. Rabat is slowly drifting in the direction of the Persian Gulf, while the French élite is taking less comfort in Marrakech. The networks woven under Hassan II have faded away and have not been replaced. In the end, Frances mechanical support of Morocco translates the loss of influence that Paris had in Africa. Taking after the U.S. during the 1970s, which attempted to support the Shah of Iran while the early stages of ayatollah Khomeinis revolution were being felt. But contrary to the Americans, who in general learned the lessons of their failures, France, often arrogant and stuck in its immobility, brings to mind the three monkeys in the proverb, who see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. Rare are those French diplomats, at the Quai dOrsay or the Elysée Palace, who are seriously addressing the turmoil and revolutions happening in the arab world. In Morocco, the situation is of still greater concern. While the diplomats from the U.S. embassy are meeting and establishing ties with key actors in civil society, including islamists, the French, for their part, prefer to imitate the Makhzen in its most vile form: the attitude of the servant who never flinches and always agrees with his master. [THE PREDATOR KING. PLUNDERING MOROCCO, my transl.]
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 17:38:51 +0000
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