Europe afraid of Türkiye, France will not send soldiers to defend Armenia French pundit says

Jean-Christophe Buisson, deputy editor of the French publication Le Figaro, an Armenophile political scientist, has said that Europe is afraid of Türkiye and France will not send its soldiers to defend Armenia.

"Is Europe prepared to do anything more than send vehicles on which machine guns can be mounted? These are not weapons that Türkiye or Azerbaijan will be afraid of. I confess that I can't answer these questions. Frankly speaking, I am a sceptic, I don't believe," Buisson said in an interview with Armenian media, Caliber.Az reports.

"I am not sure that in today's geopolitical situation, with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Europe will be ready to open a second front, because if we come and help Armenians, we will face not only NATO member Türkiye, but also Azerbaijan, as well as the military presence of Russia, with which we will have problems, because Russia will not turn a blind eye.

In other words, if an alliance with Armenia can create two conflicts, Europe wonders whether it is worth getting involved in this game. In my opinion, Europe will never consider this small island between Muslim countries, a Christian enclave, worthy of defence, given the risk that it could lead to a new regional conflict and even World War III.

That is, would Europe intervene from two or three thousand kilometres away if, say, they decided to attack Armenia tomorrow, or if there was a pro-Russian coup in Armenia? I am not sure that the governments and, unfortunately, even the population of France would understand why European soldiers should die in Armenia.

So we show that we are sending weapons to Armenia, helping Armenia, but we are sending these weapons to say that we are on Armenia's side, and if you attack, maybe even militarily we will be next to Armenia. But the political-military reality is that we are not sure that the French parliament and the people will agree to send soldiers to defend Armenia.

And secondly, we don't know what weapons we have left after sending everything to Ukraine. Whether we decide to go and invade Armenia, which is three thousand kilometres away, a region that is very difficult to reach, and the only way to get there is by air, and a road that is very easy to block, and that goes through Gyumri, where the Russian military base is located, that has to be taken into account. Given all that, how can we help Armenia? I don't think it is possible.

We had a similar experience when we sent French soldiers to die in Mali where they were fighting Islamists. The French soldiers were defending Mali's democracy, although Mali was not very grateful to them. We could have sent our soldiers to Armenia, a country with which we have close ties, but we have not done so so far because we were afraid of Russia on the one hand and Türkiye, a NATO member, on the other.

In addition to that, I also think that Europe, including France, is very afraid of Türkiye because there are thousands of refugees in Türkiye after the civil war in Syria and Türkiye is threatening Europe to open its doors and these refugees will go to Europe if Europe does not give Türkiye what they are demanding and if Europe is a little bit aggressive towards Türkiye.

As for the French Senate resolution demanding that the government impose sanctions against Azerbaijan, this is just wishful thinking. Will these wishes come true? Of course not: neither European nor French executive authorities will realize them, as they are not sure that the application of sanctions will lead to the desired consequences. The only thing that has changed, as you have seen, is that today there is great tension in relations between France and Azerbaijan," the political scientist said.