Macron's Peace Forum cheap farce Expert opinions on Caliber.Az

The sixth Paris Peace Forum, invented by French President Macron in 2018 as a large discussion platform, and a kind of French response to the Davos Forum, has once again gone down the tube. When conceiving the Paris Forum at one time, Macron chose the most lightweight format for holding - something like a meeting of famous economists and politicians who came to talk about money and business, and in between - about politics. However, Macron has taken on an unbearable burden, since both as an economist and as a politician, to put it mildly, he is rather weak.

Let's get down to the facts. Since 2020, the forum of people who talk beautifully about the world has ceased to be relevant, since Europe had to fight not with indirect problems, but with the most real ones. So, in 2020 and 2021, Europe was struggling with Covid-19, and against this background, people talking beautifully about the political and economic world order looked simply ridiculous.

Then the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out and implementing the far-fetched mission of the Paris Forum became even more difficult. It was not enough to talk abstrusely and at length about the world, but the Paris Forum was not ready to act as a serious political platform. And the outbreak of war in the Middle East finally buried Macron’s ambitions.

However, apparently wanting to compensate for his failures in the foreign policy arena, Macron invited Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the Paris Peace Forum to demonstrate to the event participants his concern for his “little sister,” allegedly oppressed by Azerbaijan and Turkey. Like, “Paris is always on the side of the victims.”

And, I must say, the prime minister of the “land of stones” met the expectations of the French president. Speaking at one of the forum panels, Pashinyan launched into tearful stories about “ethnic cleansing” and “the expulsion of Armenians from Karabakh”.

Everything would have been fine, perhaps some of those present would have even believed the Armenian prime minister if his lies had not been exposed by the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to France Leyla Abdullayeva. The Azerbaijani diplomat loudly stated that France's fears about the “threat” to Armenia from Azerbaijan are completely unfounded, emphasizing that Baku has regained control of its sovereign territories and is in favor of establishing peace and normalizing relations with Armenia. And again, a blow to Macron’s ambitions.

It should be noted that the initiative of the French president is also regarded with skepticism by experts interviewed by Caliber.Az. Thus, according to Russian political expert and economist Renat Savin, from the very day of its founding, the Paris Forum leaves a very strange impression of itself, since it can hardly be called an economic or political platform, and the participants who come to the event are more reminiscent of a motley crowd at a bazaar.

“The Paris Forum is attended by politicians, economists, and businessmen, but against the backdrop of its motley agenda, they often look ridiculous. Because there is no single concept of this structure, what it is about, for whom. As for the speech of Azerbaijani Ambassador to France Leyla Abdullayeva, it hit the mark. She, in fact, proved that with speeches and guests like Pashinyan, the forum shows its frivolity and incompetence. Especially when lies flow like a river from the forum panel. This also concerned the words of the forum moderator that he was concerned about certain “threats” of Azerbaijan against Armenia, and Pashinyan’s provocative, unsubstantiated words about “ethnic cleansing”. All this is empty talk. That is why Armenia’s all attempts to somehow condemn Azerbaijan’s actions at the UN failed miserably,” R. Savin said.

According to Kazakh political expert Atbek Aytmatov, the political failure of the Paris Forum is becoming more and more obvious.

“We must start with the fact that France itself, which has blood up to its elbows in a whole series of genocides committed in former African colonies, looks extremely ridiculous as the organizer of a forum on peace. A country that has never repented for its crimes against humanity is trying to claim the status of a peacemaker. That is why the fact of France’s expulsion from African countries is so indicative - Paris has not experienced such a shame for a long time. Therefore, the words of Ambassador Abdullayeva, who recalled that Baku cannot consider France as a mediator in peace negotiations, because Paris openly supports Armenia’s revenge-seeking, were very opportune. I believe that holding such events by France is a cheap farce,” the Kazakh political expert said.