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France calls for Afghan evacuations beyond US deadline

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that Paris believed it necessary to continue Afghan evacuations beyond Washington's August 31st deadline following the Taliban takeover.

Published: 23 August 2021 17:36 CEST
Updated: 24 August 2021 08:25 CEST

France calls for Afghan evacuations beyond US deadline

People disembark at a French military air base near Abu Dhabi, after being evacuated from Kabul. Photo: BERTRAND GUAY / AFP.

France is seeking to evacuate more than 1,000 Afghans who are fleeing the country following the Taliban’s lightning takeover a week ago, one of a number of nations scrambling to pull out vulnerable individuals.

“We are concerned about the deadline set by the United States on August 31st. Additional time is needed to complete ongoing operations,” Le Drian told reporters at the UAE’s Al-Dhafra air base, where France has set up an air bridge for people evacuated from Kabul.

France had “sheltered” nearly 1,200 people leaving Afghanistan between August 17th and 22nd, including approximately 100 French nationals and 1,000 vulnerable Afghans, as well as dozens of other nationalities, the French delegation said.

Le Drian said that access to Kabul airport was the main issue facing evacuation operations.

“We still need to increase our coordination locally, with the United States and with our partners present on site,” he said.

Defence Minister Florence Parly said Paris had a pre-approved plan to protect its citizens and Afghans who had worked alongside France.

“We started planning airlift operations before the fall of Kabul,” she said.

Le Drian and Parly were due to meet diplomats, military personnel, police officers, and “all the staff working under extremely difficult conditions to enable evacuation operations from Kabul” an official French statement said.

They were also due to meet Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, de facto leader of the UAE, to “thank the Emirati authorities for their support”, the statement added.

US President Joe Biden has set an August 31st deadline for the chaotic airlift organised by thousands of temporarily deployed US troops — but has left the door open to an extension if needed.

Since August 14th, roughly 25,100 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan aboard aircraft flown by the US and its allies, according to a White House estimate.

Britain said on Monday it would urge the United States at a virtual G7 summit to extend an end-of-the-month deadline to complete evacuations of Western citizens and Afghan colleagues from Kabul.

Germany also said it was in talks with both NATO allies and the Taliban about keeping Kabul airport open beyond August 31st.

But a spokesman for the Taliban, Suhail Shaheen, told Sky News that the hardline Islamist group would not agree to any extension of the deadline, calling this a “red line”, with any delay viewed as “extending occupation”.

Nearly 200 Afghans arrived in Abu Dhabi late Monday aboard a French military transport aircraft from Kabul, many still shocked by their ordeal and some with only a small backpack of possessions.

“Physically, I’m fine. But mentally I’m really sick. The world has to help us, especially us women,” Shukriya, who works for a Swedish NGO, told AFP.

Le Drian and Parly held a video conference with French Ambassador to Afghanistan David Martinon.

He highlighted the confusion in Kabul and difficulties in carrying out the evacuations, with thousands of Afghans clamouring for admission to the airport.

“They spend hours and hours in the sun, in the dust,” Martinon said of people who arrive with the proper paperwork to be evacuated to France.

Sometimes those forced to wait outside are targeted with rubber bullets, the ambassador said.

“But once they get through it, everything goes really fast,” he added of the evacuation process.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.