Status: 07/29/2022 07:58 a.m
French President Macron welcomes the Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman to the Élysée Palace for a dinner together – and faces massive criticism. The French government is protecting the head of state.
French President Emmanuel Macron received the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite massive criticism at the Élysée Palace. Macron greeted bin Salman with a long handshake upon his arrival, images from AFP TV showed. Human rights groups had protested the meeting, which further rehabilitated bin Salman on the international stage. According to US intelligence, bin Salman personally approved the murder of journalist and royal critic Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Many western governments distanced themselves from the crown prince.
Alternative sources of energy to Russia sought
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne defended yesterday’s invitation. Macron can be counted on to mention the issue of human rights in conversations with the crown prince and at the same time to seek energy supplies from places other than Russia, she said. “Of course it’s not about pushing our principles aside.” But given that Russia is cutting gas supplies and there are tensions over energy prices, the French wouldn’t understand “if we don’t talk to countries that are energy producers.”
France and other EU countries want to reduce their dependency on oil and natural gas supplies from Russia while securing other sources of energy. The Élysée Palace had also previously announced that Macron would discuss human rights at dinner with the crown prince. A spokesman added with regard to the murder that “we have always said that the facts should be clarified”. According to the Élysée Palace, Macron and Mohammed also wanted to discuss the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Human rights organization files lawsuit
Hours before dinner, the human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) filed a lawsuit against the crown prince in a Paris court. France’s judiciary must open a criminal investigation against bin Salman, the Washington DC-based organization said in its complaint, accusing him of complicity in the 2018 torture of Kashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his subsequent disappearance.
According to the group, two other human rights groups back their call for a French investigation. The Saudi crown prince should not enjoy immunity from prosecution because he is not his country’s head of state, it said. By signing the UN conventions against torture and enforced disappearance, France has committed to investigating a suspect like the prince when he is on French territory, said Dawn executive director Sarah Leah Whitson.
Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to collect documents for his marriage to his fiancée Hatice Cengiz. But he never came out. After lengthy denials, the leadership in Riyadh, under international pressure, admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate. Western intelligence services have attested that the crown prince was involved in the murder of the Saudi journalist and critic of the royal family. Bin Salman insists that he had no knowledge of the operation, which was carried out by people reporting directly to him.
Biden also met with bin Salman
US President Joe Biden recently visited Jeddah as part of his Middle East tour and met bin Salman there. The two heads of state greeted each other with a fist punch. During the election campaign, Biden declared that he wanted to treat Saudi Arabia like a pariah state.
The increased interest in Saudi Arabia is also a consequence of the Ukraine war and the associated explosion in energy prices. The West has so far tried in vain to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase oil production so that the price of oil falls and inflation is curbed.