European Parliament, defendant’s bench, and stools in Yerevan A “babbling” politician at the service of the defeated

Several Members of the European Parliament have recently met with Armenians who once lived illegally on the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan, and are now staging a sit-in protest in the heart of Yerevan, right on Freedom Square.

Sit-in protests, in fact, are a favourite pastime of the Karabakh Armenians. Back in the day, even Arayik Harutyunyan, former head of the Karabakh junta, staged a theatrical protest of his own, perched on a humble stool inside a tent in then-occupied Khankendi.

He’s still sitting now, only this time on the defendant’s bench at the Baku court. The same fate has befallen other former leaders of the Karabakh junta. And rightly so. After all, they stand accused of a staggering number of crimes committed against Azerbaijan.

So, once again, there’s absolutely nothing original about the protest format chosen by those who voluntarily departed Khankendi.

The stance of the Members of the European Parliament is equally unsurprising. That body has long made its bias against Azerbaijan abundantly clear, lying with shameless audacity and whitewashing Armenia’s actions. Any new statement from the European Parliament merely reaffirms its sad commitment to this tradition.

And the whole spectacle becomes even more farcical once you discover who exactly has stepped onto the stage this time to play the part of the anti-Azerbaijani fabulist.

“Azerbaijan is more than an aggressor” — this absurd statement was made in central Yerevan by Nicolas Bay. If only the vowel in his surname were drawn out, it might at least offer some explanation for such a grotesque assault on common sense.

Monsieur clearly has a talent for intellectual perversion if he dares to call an aggressor the very country whose 20% of territory was under Armenian occupation for more than a quarter of a century.

Nicolas “babbled” what amounts to a blatant disregard for the four well-known UN Security Council resolutions — the very ones Armenia never complied with. Azerbaijan, through a set of military and political measures, implemented them on its own, ultimately restoring the full sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been forced to change his tune — from militant to conciliatory. Yet the fact remains that he regularly affirms his recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, including the Karabakh economic region and the enclaves. Against this backdrop, Monsieur Nicolas is trying to appear more Armenian than Baron Nikol himself.

This very same Bay also happens to be the former Secretary General of the political party National Rally (formerly National Front), long led by Marine Le Pen.

On March 31, 2025, a court found Marine Le Pen and eight other Members of the European Parliament guilty of misusing funds. It was proven that, over the course of more than 11 years, they spent 4.1 million euros on salaries for fictitious assistants who, in reality, worked not for the European Parliament but for Le Pen's party. Do you know who was one of those eight MEPs involved in this case? That's right — Nicolas Bay!

At the end of March, a French court convicted Nicolas Bay of embezzling public funds and sentenced him to 12 months in prison, with 10 months to be served in real custody. He was also banned from holding any elected office for three years, with the sentence taking immediate effect.

So, here’s who is today "barking" against Azerbaijan and supporting the Karabakh separatists.

The past of this monsieur provides ample reason to suspect that his voice in central Yerevan was not given for free. In France, there are plenty of wealthy Armenians ready to support any politician who diligently "barks" against Azerbaijan. This has always been the case, and it seems it will continue.

However, all these noises and gestures from Members of the European Parliament, which could personally enrich each of them, have nothing to do with the truth or the actual course of events.

Azerbaijan has clearly implemented its agenda. As for what is happening in central Yerevan with Armenians who were illegally residing on the temporarily occupied territories of our country — that’s a headache for the Armenian leadership, which will still have to explain how these events fit into Nikol Pashinyan's statements about the urgency of signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan.