For Ilham Aliev, Azerbaijani President, whose country has been hosting COP29 since the beginning of the week, France has committed crimes in New Caledonia and human rights violations. Virulent accusations, unusual in the context of a Conference on climate change, and which testify to the very serious deterioration of relations between Paris and Baku. French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced that she would not attend COP29
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This is not the first time that theAzerbaijan attack it France for its management of crisis in New Caledoniabut this time Ilham Aliev’s remarks are made in the context of an international conference, and in particularly virulent terms, the Azerbaijani president evoking France’s crimes in these “ so-called overseas territories » and the human rights violations perpetrated by the Emmanuel Macron regime: “ After all this, France has not been denounced neither by the European Commission, nor by the European Parliament, nor by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This is political hypocrisy. The European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe share responsibility with President Macron’s government for the murders of innocent people. »
The allusion to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is not insignificant: Azerbaijan was in fact suspended from this Assembly at the start of the year for the repression carried out on the opposition and on the independent media of the country. As for France, if it too finds itself in the crosshairs of the Azerbaijani president, it is above all because of the aid provided by Paris to Armenia since in 2023, Azerbaijan took over arms control of Nagorno-Karabakh. This tension in diplomatic relations between France and Azerbaijan was reflected in the strong support given by Baku to the independence cause in the French overseas territories and primarily in New Caledonia.
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A first since 2015
And in reaction to these statements by the Azerbaijani president, the French Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced that she would not go to the COP29 in Baku calling attacks “ unacceptable » the words of Ilham Aliev and accusing him of exploiting “ the fight against climate change for an unworthy personal agenda “.
A French Minister of Ecology absent from a COP on the climate is a first since the Paris agreement in 2015. But the French minister affirms it: her boycott will not prevent the French delegation from fulfilling its mission on site: The French teams will be at the COP. They will be in all the negotiation rooms, they will carry our agenda. And I can tell you that we are determined to take very ambitious positions in the fight against climate change. » Still a week ago, Agnès Pannier-Runacher had assured that France would not give in to “ empty chair policy “.
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