A bauble for the prince
So guess what François Hollande did on Friday – gave the god damn Legion of Honor to Saudi Arabia. To Saudi Arabia.
The French government was among the most vocal outside the Middle East in its condemnation of Saudi mass executions earlier this year, calling the kingdom’s killing of 47 people “deeply deplorable”.
Yet almost two months to the day after that statement was issued, President François Hollande awarded his nation’s most prestigious award to the heir to the Saudi throne, Prince Mohammed bin Naif.
Thus letting him know the French government didn’t really mean it about those 47 executions.
They tried to keep it a secret. There was a meeting with Angela Merkel the same day and that got lashings of coverage, but they drew a tactful veil over the high five to the Saudis.
That the Prince even received the award was only confirmed by Mr Hollande’s entourage on Sunday afternoon. Officials sought to play it down, telling Le Monde it was “common protocol” to issue visiting dignitaries with the honour.
But while in France the decoration was done, as media outlets put it, “with discretion”, the government-owned Saudi news agency SPA hailed the honour as recognition for the prince’s “great efforts in the region and world for combating extremism and terrorism”.
Nonsense. They don’t combat extremism, they promote it. They spend their oil money on funding Wahhabi mosques all around the world. They fund Wahhabi madrasas. They sue academics who criticize them. They sentence atheists and liberals to prison and torture. They are all about extremism. They are not nice people and they don’t deserve honors.
In its report from the Crown Prince’s visit, SPA said the two sides “reviewed bilateral relations between the Kingdom and France and ways of enhancing and developing them in all fields, particularly joint cooperation for combating extremism and terrorism”.
“The French President and the Crown Prince also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and exerted efforts towards them in addition to the two countries stances towards them,” it said.
The visit was a “success”, said Saudi minister of culture and information Adel al-Toraifi, and included discussions of “investment”.
Neither report made mention of the refugee crisis, throughout which Saudi Arabia been accused of failing to take its fair share of asylum seekers. And given the “discretion” surrounding the visit, it is not known whether Mr Hollande felt able to bring up the Saudi human rights record.
Saudi Arabia hasn’t taken any asylum seekers.
Merde, France.
If I were fleeing from ISIS the last place I would want to go is Saudi Arabia.
I’m sure all past recipients just feel so good about this basically-it-doesn’t-mean-anything excuse.
The French are simply collaborating with another bunch of vicious gangsters, possibly in the hope that those same gangsters will leave them alone and target someone else.
WTF??? This is incomprehensible.
Sadly, it’s entirely comprehensible. Oil and weapons. Plus a residue of Cold War politics, plus current fears of uncontrolled Islamic fanaticism (as opposed to controlled Islamic fanaticism).
Well, Bébé Doc Duvallier has been living ever happily in France since he fled Haiti… nothing surprising there. And also a lot of Mirage fighter planes to be sold yet, I’m sure.
Here’s a selection of facts and figures about Dhimmi Hollande’s favourite barbarous regime.
(1) Population 27.7 with an estimated 9 million foreign workers.
(2) 60% of Saudi jobs are held by foreigners.
(3) These are are under the heading “Rights”, perhaps someone was being rather sarky.
a 151 people were executed in 2015
b There’s an estimated 30,000 political prisoners in the Kingdom.
(4) Women are prohibited from driving, opening a bank account, walking outside without the suffocating all encompassing black tent or travelling unaccompanied by a male family chaperone.
(5) anyone who is encouraged by the recent elections in Saudi Arabia should note that male voters outnumber female voters by 10 to 1.
(6) 400,000+ websites are blocked by the regime and the broadcast media is 100% government controlled.
I realise that there’s a supposed US State Dept expression “yes, we know he’s a son-of-bitch, but he’s OUR son-of -bitch” however, surely there are limits.
Source: “New Internationalist” NI 490 March 2016
OOOPs, ‘son-of-a-bitch’.
So what will Hollande hand out when 14 or so Saudi jihadists blow up the Eiffel Tower?
France has just distributed extra strength bullet-proof vests to the thousands of policemen guarding the country’s landmarks. And they’ve only been forced to do so because Saudi Arabia has exported its fundamentalist ideology to France.
I wonder what the friends and families of the Bataclan victims think of this
Italy is doing much the same. They seem to think that if they grovel enough, they’ll be spared attacks
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18511
John #10
I doubt it, Jihadists who launch violent attacks generally hate the Saudi royal family. More likely it’s what Rob said – oil, weapons, money.