Jean-Yves Le Drian was to express, Monday, November 15, during a meeting with his counterparts from the European Union (EU), “France’s total solidarity with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in the face of the unacceptable instrumentalisation of migratory flows by the Belarusian regime”. In the hope of putting an end to these operations, which are also considered in Paris as falling within a “Hybrid war”, the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs was to support the adoption of a fifth package of European sanctions against Minsk, the Quai d’Orsay reported on Sunday (November 14th).
Even if Paris does not directly point the finger at the responsibility of Russia in the current crisis – unlike the Polish government – the question was raised with Moscow, during a meeting on Friday between Jean-Yves Le Drian, Florence Parly, Minister of the Armed Forces, and their Russian counterparts.
Since August 2020, France has fully supported the four sets of European sanctions against Minsk; Paris criticizes the strategy ” brutal “ and systematic repression of the regime, and deplores the “Acts of destabilization” from Belarus to neighboring countries. The French ambassador stationed in the Belarusian capital, Nicolas de Bouillane de Lacoste, had to return to France on October 17, under the official pretext of not having presented his credentials to President Alexander Lukashenko, whom Paris does not recognize. re-election.
In France, the Belarusian crisis is awakening old divisions. For the right, it is all European foreign policy that is played out on the Polish border; for the far right, this is proof that “Immigration is a form of war”. For the Greens, it is clear that Russia is trying “To organize a war on the borders of Europe”.
“A test for Europe”, according to Damien Abad
François-Xavier Bellamy, the leader of the Les Républicains (LR) party in Brussels, flew on November 10 to the aid of a Poland regularly criticized for its treatment of the migrant crisis. What is at stake at the borders of the EU is for him a collective problem: “In eastern Europe, the Belarusian dictatorship is organizing a migration crisis. This is not Poland’s problem, it is our problem. If we don’t help him, we have no future. ”
Damien Abad, president of the LR group in the National Assembly, also believes that “The method of the President of Belarus is despicable”. She aims “To exploit the distress of men and women and to provoke a humanitarian catastrophe on our doorstep, even a diplomatic crisis of greater magnitude” and it’s for him “A real test for Europe”. He warns : “If the EU is unable to protect the peoples of Europe, and primarily its borders against migratory movements, then it will disappear. “
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