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Macron calls for unity as France prepares to host Olympics

French President Emmanuel Macron called for unity in the country in his New Year's Eve address Sunday as it prepares for the 2024 Olympic Games, after a difficult year for his government.

Published: 1 January 2024 09:20 CET

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French President Emmanuel Macron visits the Royal Jordanian Air Force's Prince Hassan Air Base (H5), about 117 kilometres northwest of the capital Amman, on December 22nd, 2023, during a visit to Jordan. Photo by: Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Speaking from the gardens of the Elysee Palace, with the flags of the Olympic nations behind him, he promised a civic and economic “rearmament” for the country.

And evoking the memory of former European Union leader Jacques Delors, who died on Wednesday, he said voters would have a decisive choice to make in June’s European elections.

They would have to choose between “continuing Europe or blocking it”, he said.

“We will have to make the choice of a stronger, more sovereign Europe in the light of the legacy of Jacques Delors.”

Macron was speaking at the end of a troubled year in which his government forced through deeply unpopular pensions reforms and faced summer riots over the police killing of youths.

More recently, the government passed a controversial immigrations bill with the backing of the far right, creating divisions within its own ranks.

And Macron himself came under fire earlier this month for comments he made supporting film icon Gerard Depardieu, who is charged with rape and facing a litany of sexual assault claims.

He has also faced criticism for his handling of the crisis in the Middle East that followed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli response.

France would not forget the hostages held by Hamas, he said Sunday, or the 41 French citizens killed during their attack.

But his call last week for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far fallen on deaf ears.

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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.