Talk about Francophone ridicule! Are the French making a ‘laughing stock’ of themselves by trying to act like a central player in the Ukraine crisis? For Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran, columnist Kharroubi Habib says that French threats of military action by Prime Minister Francois Hollande, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian are making both Washington and Moscow ‘double over with laughter.’
For Le Quotidien d’Oran, Kharroubi Habib begins his broadside against French pretensions this way:
The trio of French Rambos – Hollande, Fabius and Le Drian, are showing again that they are ready to talk with gunpowder. This time against Russia. To demonstrate their determination, they have let it be known that France is ready to send four combat aircraft to Poland and the Baltic countries to deal with any Russian military threat against them.
We imagine that upon hearing the news, Vladimir Putin has lost sleep, the Russian army is in a panic, and the terrified Russian people are calling for divine protection. More seriously, by considering sending French planes as proof that France is determined to counter the Russian “expansionism” suggested by the Ukrainian crisis, the Paris trio are talking nonsense and have become a laughing stock. The military strike against Qaddafi and his regime ordered by Nicolas Sarkozy, and the missions that the trio themselves have mounted in Mali and Central Africa, show that in their minds, by reacting militarily, they believe Russia will be intimidated by their firmness.
Washington and Moscow must have doubled over with laughter upon learning of the French defense minister’s announcement. Neither capital is fooled by the overzealous “firmness” that Paris manifests every time there is an international crisis. Obama and Putin know that this is the way the French trio seek to impose France as a key player in redefining the global order – an order that their two states negotiate bilaterally in times of crisis whenever they indirectly confront one another by supporting one of the warring camps.
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