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Qabil Ashirov

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Led by Gilbert-Luc Devinaz and Pierre Ouzoulias, over 60 French senators and deputies called President Emmanuel Macron to impose sanctions against Azerbaijan. Needless to say that the appeal is full of misinformation and hate against Azerbaijanis.

French senators baselessly accuse Azerbaijan of blockade and attempts at ethnic cleansing. However, for some reason, the legislators turn a blind eye to the fact that over 30,000 Armenian live in Azerbaijan, but over 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and over 750,000 compatriots were driven out from Garabagh by Armenians. Today no Azerbaijani lives in Armenia and part of Garabagh that is under the control of peacekeepers with separatists. Besides, it seems that the same French legislators forget that the hand of France smeared the blood of Africans.

Moreover, French senators brazenly noted that by imposing sanctions on Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani statespersons, they will force Azerbaijanis to be coexistent with Armenians in the South Caucasus.

However, they forget that trade turnover between Azerbaijan and France is not so big, and France does not play a special role in the Azerbaijani economy. So, it raises a question, what kind of sanctions France can impose on Azerbaijan?

In a comment for AZERNEWS on the issue, the economist and politician Natig Jafarly noted that the main reason for the recent tension between Azerbaijan and France is the attempts of France to take a serious role over Armenia in the South Caucasus and become a serious player in the region.

“For some reason, France has an idea that Russia will become weaker and weaker in the region, and as its influence on Armenia disappears, France can become a serious player in the South Caucasus over Armenia. This is the main goal of France,” Jafarly said.

He also noted that there are other reasons, as well. Thus, there is a fairly large and strong Armenian lobby in France. They have the opportunity to influence the elections and some politicians, the Armenians have been able to build a system in this country for decades. They actively participate in the elections, provide financial support to the parties partaking in the elections, and in this way influence politics. That is, they try to do so.

“However, the ever-increasing and developing cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan, between European countries and Azerbaijan, especially in the field of energy, is in the serious interest of European countries. Therefore, I do not think that France, which is a part of the EU, will apply any sanctions against Azerbaijan. In other words, the presence of such an event may lead to tension in the relations between Azerbaijan and France, and between Azerbaijan and the EU. But 'the French parliament' can adopt certain declarations, documents that haveno legal basis. There may even be certain challenges. However, the sanction is severe and it is impossible to apply this in some form against Azerbaijan.

Besides, in order for France to take such a step, the majority of the Senate and parliament must vote for it. It should not be forgotten that there are other parties and other political factions in France that do not want this to happen. There are also big companies with business interests, including Total, which will lobby for the de-escalation of relations with Azerbaijan,” he said.

The expert also does not rule out that there will be sanctions, but it is possible to accept documents that sound like political statements without any legal significance.

As for France's exaggeration of issues related to ethnic cleansing, he emphasized that looking at France's past, it is not ethical, and even has no legal basis.

“Because Azerbaijan did not carry out ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing has been carried out against Azerbaijanis for 30 years. If France wants to see this kind of act, then it had better look at monoethnic Armenia. 99% of the population there are Armenians. This is the ethnic cleansing. 100 thousand ethnic Azerbaijanis have been deported from Armenia. Also, 100 thousand local people were expelled from the former NK and in reality Garabagh and surrounding regions before the Patriotic War. The ethnic cleansing took place here. To present it the other way around is not based on legal and historical facts, figuratively speaking, it will have no takers,” he added.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov

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