Thursday’s visit to the Elysee Palace by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the first in Europe since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, does not “question our commitment to human rights”, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has insisted.
“Obviously it is not about setting aside our principles, it is not about questioning our commitment to human rights. The President of the Republic will surely have the opportunity to talk about it with Mr. Mohammed Ben Salmane”, declared Elisabeth Borne during a trip to Châtenois, in the Vosges.
Emmanuel Macron hosts “MBS” for dinner on Thursday night, a visit that draws the ire of human rights defenders.
An “energy producing country”
“I think the French would not understand, in a context in which we know that Russia is cutting off, threatening to cut off and cut off again the gas supply, where there are tensions in energy prices, that we do not discuss with the countries that are precisely energy producers”, continues Élisabeth Borne.
“This, of course, does not call into question the expectations that may be expressed about the respect of human rights” with Mohammed Ben Salmane, he added.
The meeting between the French head of state and the Saudi crown prince, which follows that of Emmanuel Macron in Jeddah in December, is one more sign of the “rehabilitation” of the de facto leader of the kingdom, less than two weeks after the visit of the US president, Joe Biden, to Saudi Arabia, which definitively consecrated the return of “MBS” to the international scene.
Out of play since 2018
Indeed, MBS had been banned by Western countries after the 2018 assassination of critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
columnist of Washington PostCritical of the Saudi power, the journalist was murdered and quartered on October 2, 2018 in the facilities of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when he went to collect the necessary papers for his marriage.
Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said she was “shocked” that Emmanuel Macron was hosting the Saudi crown prince.
This visit has as a background the war in Ukraine and the rise in energy prices, which leads Western countries to review their relations with Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, which they intend to convince to open the floodgates to ease the markets.
Source: BFM TV
