Few today would deny that imperialism has become a transnational phenomenon and is working hard to expand the limits of its influence. Its main weapon continues to be the manipulation of mass consciousness. To achieve its goals, it works assiduously to create heroes, and they are quickly born. But few live long in this role. Most of them are doomed to an unhappy fate, because their personal qualities, despite the efforts of the mass media and the Internet, do not fit to the part assigned to them by the ruling elites.
French President Emmanuel Macron became one of the “heroes” of the new era who turned into an anti-hero before our eyes. His gross mistakes in domestic and foreign policy and his failed economic doctrine have driven the sensitive categories of the French people to despair.
Every country, every community has its national peculiarities and specific preferences. The French prefer people who successfully fight not mythical but real problems. They tend to reject those from high places who are not patriots at all, but only pretend to be devoted to ideals.
The test of the proverbial “to be or to appear to be” formula proved to be a trap for the President of the Fifth Republic. The masses have figured him out.
However, the head of the French state is not particularly concerned about it. He continues to ignore even the threatening trend of the decline in the social health of the popular majority. Switching to the external sector, he continues to try to delegate special powers to transnational monsters so that they continue to limit the freedom and independence of sovereign states and overseas territories.
But this is the twenty-first century, and the nations that have experienced the horrors of the colonial era are resisting the dictates of Macron’s France more and more fiercely, rejecting the neo-colonial machinations of the fallen metropolis. Nevertheless, Macron, who fancies himself a political monster, is eager to turn the tide on the colonial front, and he is actively visiting the overseas territories and states that France has kept under severe oppression for centuries. He is eager to restore the lost glory of his country through a predatory strategy that involves conquest and exploitation of peoples and their natural wealth by military, political and economic means.
Macron is the country’s most unpopular head of state in new history, and his falling ratings are testament to that. He is afraid to go out to the people who honor him with slaps and spits, gifts in the form of rotten eggs and insults. Yet somehow it is like water off a duck’s back for him. How can one get so irksome to his fellow citizens that they always greet one with humiliating comments and scathing questions?
He is simply unable to give intelligible answers to pressing questions. Could this be why he repeats like a mantra the hackneyed maxim that “governance is not a matter of individuals, it is the system that plays the decisive role”!? He believes that by using a controversial narrative he absolves himself of accountability for unresolved problems. Many of them, by the way, emerged during his presidential term.
And after all, if the system fails, it is up to the ruling circles, the first persons responsible for high governance to adjust it. If they become indifferent to the needs of their contemporaries, it is unforgivable.
The suspended state of turmoil paves the way for total chaotization. And who would dare to claim that France is not in danger of further turmoil under such a feckless leader? Emmanuel Macron has a massive liability, and the trouble is that it is growing relentlessly while the president continues to be ostentatiously confident. It is essentially his doing that the institution of the presidency in France quickly lost its prestige.
The former heads of the Fifth Republic, Georges Pompidou, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, have left their mark on the history of the country and in the memory of the people as great personalities. Being accomplished statesmen, they brought splendor and glory to their country through successful reforms and relevant actions.
Macron will certainly not be able to take his place alongside the outstanding leaders of the past. He distinguished himself in a very pernicious way, not realizing that in interstate relations the personal reputation of the leader, their image, which becomes a personal achievement of the politician, play an important role.
Every mistake or every success automatically translates into political capital, and it is a good thing if it carries a positive coefficient. Macron’s baggage is not exactly abundant in this area. He is only building up a bad reputation, tarnishing the reputation of his state.
The success or lack of it with regard to national leaders is an eloquent indicator, and it does not matter which leader we are talking about or which country they represent. Only those leaders and political figures who manage to pursue a rational and visionary course that brings confidence and prosperity to the people go down in history with a positive image.
If we make a comparison between France and Azerbaijan, it is not difficult to notice the contrasts in the main indicators of the heads of the two states. The European heavyweight surpasses the leader of the South Caucasus in terms of territory and population many times over. However, the international reputation of the heads of state of the two countries is noticeably dissimilar.
President Ilham Aliyev has been recognized for many years as a successful reformer and skillful state manager.
Over the years of his governance, he has been able to implement more than one important and exclusive integration project, visibly revitalizing the international environment. Thanks to these projects, stability and security have been strengthened. President Ilham Aliyev is recognized in the world as a flexible leader of the country, skilled in the art of public speaking and negotiation, author of unique energy, transport and communication, humanitarian and socio-cultural projects. He has established himself as a bearer of original ideas that bring great benefits to both the present generations of Azerbaijanis and dozens of states.
An unbiased look at the image of the leaders of Azerbaijan and France leaves no doubt that Emmanuel Macron is overshadowed by Ilham Aliyev, being inferior to him not only in terms of personality, but also in moral, business and political qualities.
There is a clear contrast between the two, especially in the way they show themselves in big politics. Thanks to Macron, France is openly promoting separatism in several regions of the world, including the South Caucasus, giving a shoulder to the proponents of the ideology of Armenian Tseghakronism.
His destructive policy of fomenting ethnic strife in the Caucasus has met with fierce opposition in the world. It is not a coincidence that the leaders of the overseas territories, which Paris is trying to drive back into the colonial fold, condemned Macron’s dangerous course.
At the ministerial meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held in Baku on July 5, 2023, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev strongly condemned the policy of neocolonialism, which Paris is pursuing in the overseas territories and in the whole world.
The Azerbaijani leader’s criticism of the French leader was met with great approval by the distinguished audience. Official Baku, having developed a peaceful agenda for the Caucasus region, also announced an agenda for the complete elimination of colonialism in the world. This initiative was carried out as part of Ilham Aliyev’s chairmanship in the NAM.
And the Baku International Conference “Towards the Complete Elimination of Colonialism” shed a clear light on the crimes of France in Oceania, the Caribbean Sea and other parts of the world. The purposeful activity of the Baku action group made it possible to expose the unlawful actions of the French authorities that seek to revive colonialism.
Official Paris is seriously concerned about this situation, because the evidence and alarming information shared in Baku by the leaders of the NAM countries have been widely publicized. The French authorities would very much like to hide the traces of their crimes from the international community, but Azerbaijan, using international platforms, successfully draws the world’s attention to the alarming facts. They threaten the health, security and environment of the overseas territories, causing new victims among the people of vast areas, inflicting terrible damage to the world flora and fauna.
Could this be why President Macron decided to visit New Caledonia, Vanuatu and other Oceania islands at the end of July to denounce the atrocities he had committed? Probably. By taking a step towards the humiliated and deceived peoples of countries and dominions, Paris is trying to justify itself, but it is failing.
The populations of the overseas territories, and especially New Caledonia, are seriously concerned by the dirty and dangerous policies of the French government, and are therefore vocal in their indignation and outrage.
Instead of dealing with the escalating problems of its own country and overseas territories, France today interferes in the affairs of sovereign states, imposing its false standards on them. Paris is seriously hindering the process of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization, reintegration of the Armenian community of Karabakh into the Azerbaijani society. At the same time, it openly supports Armenia’s revanchism and arms it in order to provoke a new military conflict in the South Caucasus.
The European Union and the head of the European Council Charles Michel oppose this, but Paris continues to provide financial support to radical Armenian forces in order to gain their trust. A very strange and incomprehensible desire.
The President of Azerbaijan resolutely cuts down the French leader’s disruptive attempts, openly accusing him of destructiveness. And face-to-face disputes between the leaders of Azerbaijan and France usually end with a victory of Ilham Aliyev, who has repeatedly had to give the master of the Champs-Élysées a wake-up call on the sidelines of summits and political formats.
Purposefully pursuing a discriminatory policy towards the peoples of overseas territories and departments, including Corsica, France is effectively plundering natural resources and trampling the rights of oppressed generations. But the awakening of local peoples has become a serious obstacle to the dirty aspirations of official Paris.
The peoples of dozens of countries affected by French colonialism see the realization of their hopes in the constructive policy of Azerbaijan, which during its chairmanship in the NAM has been able to create real prerequisites for curbing the permissiveness of the French authorities.
By raising the voice of truth in defense of the victims, the members of the Baku action group have moved their partners and friendly countries to launch a new stage of irreconcilable struggle against French neo-colonialism. They have the right to hold Macron accountable for his criminal acts. Similarly, the French themselves should ask their head of state why he liberally squanders the taxpayers’ money, allocating it for the militarization of Armenia, while France’s social programs, socially and economically neglected overseas territories and departments need it.
Emmanuel Macron today hypocritically complains about Azerbaijan, stirring up the non-existent problem of Karabakh Armenians, sending international observers to Armenia, although there is no reason for it, and yet he blithely ignores the pressing problems of Martinique and Guadeloupe, New Caledonia and the islands of Oceania.
Martinique and Guadeloupe are currently the world record holders in terms of the average number of cancer patients. The male population on the islands is being mowed down by prostate cancer, and it has already been proven that this menacing scourge is the result of the widespread use of the highly toxic pesticide chlordecone on farms. The people of Martinique are rightly demanding compensation from Macron. But the French government remains stoically, nonchalantly silent.
Macron’s cynical reaction to the Algerian government’s scathing rebuke about the monumental damage inflicted on the Arab country and the responsibility for the massacres that continued for 132 colonial years comes to mind. The response of the mediocre president outraged the politicians who had seen it all.
Emmanuel Macron earned the scorn of millions with his monstrous answer: “I am not responsible for the fact that I was not born during the massacres”. But then he is not one to lack in indecency.
Edmund Burke, the philosopher who chronicled the French Revolution, was right when he said: “Woe to that country, too, that, passing into the opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to command!”
It feels as if the great Irishman is a contemporary of ours and even lives in France, doesn’t it?
Tofig Abbasov
Translated from Minval.az
