The Russian invasion of Ukraine has, in many European capitals, have a conscientious examination of the magnitude of the blindness of the leaders in place in relation to the ambitions yet posted by Vladimir Putin. In Berlin, it is the bet of Angela Merkel on the integration of Russia by the trade that is involved, so much he has accentuated the vulnerability of Germany rather than encouraged a virtuous cycle with Moscow.
In France, the debate remains indulgent towards Emmanuel Macron and “the security and confidence architecture between the European Union and Russia” that he proposed in August 2019 to Putin, welcoming him to his residence Summer of brick. Shortly after, the French president stigmatizes the “deep state” diplomats who dare to issue doubts about his desire for strategic rapprochement with Moscow. This barely veiled threat helps to stifle any internal criticism of Elysian voluntarism. However, it is not in Europe, but in North Africa, that one of the most disturbing episodes of such a sequence took place.
All united for haftar
Libya’s first civil war, from February to October 2011, leads to the overthrow and elimination of Muammar Gaddafi, after four decades of absolute power. We have to wait until May 2014 for the second civil war, on the initiative of a former Gaddafi General, Khalifa Hatar, soon proclaimed “Marshal”. This one dreams in Libyan emule from the former Marshal Sissi, which has just been “elected” at 97% of the votes at the head of Egypt, after having overthrew the Islamist president. Denouncing all of his opponents as “terrorists”, Hatar implanted in Tobrouk, in the east of the country, the rival authorities of the government installed in the capital of Tripoli. In March 2016, he refused to rally to the National Union Government of Faïez Sarraj, yet recognized by the United Nations as soon as he took office in Tripoli.
Hatar is openly supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which violate the international embargo to continue armory, and more discreetly by Russia and France. For the Kremlin, it is a form of revenge on the NATO campaign in 2011 in Libya. For François Hollande, cooperation with Haftar participates in the “anti-terrorist” logic on the entire Sahel. In 2016, three French soldiers die in “commanded service” in the fall of a helicopter of the Hatar forces in Benghazi.
Emmanuel Macron, two months after joining the Elysée, gathered Sarraj and Haftar at the Celle-Saint-Cloud, in July 2017, in the name of reconciliation between Tripoli and Tobrouk. Regardless of the same plan, the Government recognized by the UN and the rebel leader authorities, the essential is for the French president to leave the impasse, a hope quickly disappointed. But the bias of Paris in favor of Hatar persists and it is even accentuated by the very strong proximity between Macron and Mohammed Ben Zayed, the strong man of the United Arab Emirates, whose French leaders are happy to marry the quarrels, including his anti obsession. -islamist.
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