Who orchestrated the trip to France of Olena Zelenska, the wife of the Ukrainian president, helped build his charity evening at the Salle Pleyel, stalled the details of his Parisian schedule, intertwining it with that of Brigitte Macron ? The pro bono (volunteer) organizer of the Ukrainian first lady’s tour in Europe is a French communication agency, and not just any: Havas, the former Euro RSCG, directed by the influential Stéphane Fouks. A well-established but little-known canal between Paris and kyiv.
There, Havas employs three hundred employees, of which a few hundred continue to work, since February 24, sometimes in a shelter in the basement equipped with an electric generator. The adventure began almost twenty years ago, when Euro RSCG arrived in Ukraine. French companies are still rare there. Stéphane Fouks’ agency is a pioneer in a country that became independent in 1991 and which, since the “orange revolution” of 2004, has been looking towards Europe. He smells the economic potential of this former state of the Soviet Union, neglected by a French intelligentsia still situating the country in the old Russian space. “How many French presidents have visited Ukraine since its independence? »likes to question Fouks, before blowing the answer: ” Zero ! » Emmanuel Macron himself waited until February 2022 to go to kyiv, and again, after a visit to Moscow.
Even if Ukraine weighs only 1% of the profits made by Havas, Stéphane Fouks takes advantage of the opportunities offered by this growing country and relies on its new generation of engineers, coders and graphic designers. But, nearly twenty years ago, he fell above all on a good client: the Ukrainian Viktor Pintchouk, the second fortune of the country and oligarch, as these men are called who, by their proximity to power, have benefited from privatizations. The billionaire passed by the policy seeks to rebuild a virginity.
Inglorious Episode
Thanks to Euro RSCG, Pintchouk becomes the favorite Eastern European philanthropist of Westerners. And the Yalta European Strategy (YES), which he created in 2004, with the idea of promoting Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, has become a very popular annual meeting of the liberal left. On the shores of the Black Sea, in the hall of the Yalta Accords signed in 1945 to maintain “a secure and lasting peace” in Europe, the cream of the leaders of the time thronged: Tony Blair, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Michel Rocard, Manuel Valls, but also Hillary Clinton and Kofi Annan. Including, at the time, a certain… Frédéric Michel, current communications and strategy adviser to Emmanuel Macron. Spotted by Havas, the consultant, then working in London for the Blairites, helped launch the first two YES summits in Crimea.
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