"Although all countries should rejoice at the prospect of establishing peace and balance in the region, it seems that France is continuing its anti-Azerbaijani crusade."

The chief executive officer of the French "LaGazette", political analyst Jean-Michel Brun said these words to Ednews while assessing the diplomatic tension between France and Azerbaijan:

"Concretely, France's unconditional support for the Armenian separatists is enough to exasperate the Azerbaijani authorities, even though we are witnessing a spectacular rapprochement between Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan with a view to working to restore peace in the Caucasus. We even saw the two men display mutual politeness during the informal meeting of the CIS countries in Saint Petersburg on December 26. A warming of relations which prolonged the exchange of military prisoners and Armenia's withdrawal from the COP 29 candidacy in favor of Azerbaijan.

Despite this, eight French elected officials, including Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region, and Bruno Retailleau, leader of the Les Républicains party, signed a column in a weekly protesting against the choice of Baku for COP29. This determination of the French political class to support the Armenian separatists, including against the Armenian government itself, and this for reasons of pure domestic politics ends up disqualifying France from any influence in the Caucasus, from the very principle that we cannot be both judge and party. While everyone should rejoice at the prospect of peace and balance in the region, France seems to be continuing its anti-Azerbaijani crusade, probably pushed by France's powerful Armenian diaspora, which has, since the start of the conflict, taken advocates for the Armenian separatists. Thus, French diplomacy seems to have more the objective of sabotaging the emerging peace than the search for balance in the Caucasus. the recent promise to deliver weapons to Yerevan has, of course, only made matters worse."

Geopolitical analyst added that the response of the French MFA to the Azerbaijani MFA is a blow to Macron's diplomatic image:

"As for the “measure of reciprocity”, it is part of the usual customs of diplomacy. To the expulsion of its diplomats, a country always responds with the same measure with regard to the country concerned. These outdated habits certainly do not give a good image of French diplomacy which Emmanuel Macron had promised to “rejuvenate”. In any case, France, without a long-term vision of its international policy - we saw this with the French procrastination over the situation in Gaza - and always lagging behind the United States, is increasingly weakening its international voice, which becomes confused and inaudible, and risks missing out on profound transformations in global geopolitics. We will be surprised when French voters desert the polls."

Akbar Novruz