Armenia's strategic moves with France draw regional concerns Geopolitical chess

Macron's regular attempts to break into the South Caucasus and gain a foothold here by any means resemble the actions of an elephant in a glassware shop. New military agreement with Armenia on supply of Caesar SAU, calls of French politicians to "protect Armenia" and place French bases on its territory - all these provocative steps of Paris cause discontent not only in Azerbaijan, but also in other countries of the region.

And what did foreign experts tell the Caliber.Az correspondent about this?

According to Israeli political observer of ITON-TV channel Alexander Gur-Arie, Armenia is now trying to leave the zone of Russian influence.

"As for Macron's policy - it is, to put it mildly, not characterized by great intelligence and foresight. This is not to say that there are no professional diplomats and politicians in France, it is just that there is a feeling that President Macron often does not listen to the advice of professionals, but is guided by emotions.

Macron's latest emotional outburst is linked to the failure of his party in the European Parliament elections and the pan-European triumph of right-wing parties, which is a very likely indicator of how the elections in France itself will play out - that is, the apparent failure of Macron's party.

In this regard, it is now crucial for him to appeal to the French electorate, to prove that he is a kind of brutal politician - in this sense, it is worth noting that the notion of "brutality" is a kind of obsession for Macron.

Needless to say, when a person is too fixated on such things, he clearly lacks this very brutality. For example, we remember that from the moment the conflict in Ukraine began, Macron began to be very active, calling Kyiv and Moscow, trying to enter big politics by such moves and finally gain a foothold there. That is, Macron is doing extremely poorly in domestic politics, and therefore Macron is clearly trying to compensate for his weakness by playing games in foreign policy.

The current support for Armenia is quite a traditional policy of France, given the influence of the Armenian diaspora in the country, it is an obvious attempt by Macron to establish himself as a politician. But all these attempts by Macron look extremely clumsy, for example, we watched with interest how Macron tried to act as a kind of peace mediator between the terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel to stop or at least reduce the degree of confrontation, but he failed.

All this shows that France's potential weight and authority is extremely low, and this is very disturbing for Macron, hitting his ego. Israel, by the way, last week categorically refused France's mediation in the future, and this was a retaliatory measure to block Israel's ability to participate in the largest arms exhibition in Paris," the political analyst noted.

In his words, Russia also has a negative attitude to Paris' toxic policy in the region, and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that "Paris is provoking a new armed conflict in the South Caucasus. In his opinion, Zakharova is absolutely right, it speaks in general about the current political handwriting of Paris - to get involved in various political affairs without thinking at all about the consequences.

"But the upcoming parliamentary elections may seriously change the entire political background of France and make significant adjustments to Macron's plans." Gur-Arie added.

In the opinion of Sharip Ishmukhamedov, a Kazakh political scientist and candidate of political sciences, Armenia has become a toy in the geopolitical game in the South Caucasus. And France is not a country that brings peace and security to certain countries and regions, rather, on the contrary. An example is the current situation in Niger, Mali, Cameroon - countries that France controlled but brought neither development, peace nor security to these countries.

"So France is not primarily the example that will bring development and security, strengthening democracy to Armenia. The examples of many Asian and African countries show that one should be extremely cautious in cooperation with France, which always prioritizes only its own interests.

The second point is that, of course, Armenia is an independent state and has the right to buy weapons and cooperate with any country in the world, but the timing and the situation are completely wrong. Armenia, which is only now establishing peaceful cooperation with Azerbaijan, seems to be trying to rethink its occupation strategy by starting to buy offensive weapons, essentially cuts it to the bone.

And by and large, this shows that the Armenian leadership is still not ready to establish good-neighborly relations with Azerbaijan. And the French government, which is activating arms supplies to Armenia, has taken the darkest and unconstructive path, not taking into account the experience of its mistakes in former colonies - well, apparently, it is difficult for Paris to learn even from its own geopolitical miscalculations," Ishmukhamedov noted.