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France: The Honest Imperialist

“Like others before me, I am honest about it: Yes, I oppress French citizens, but for ‘France’s interests’ – French capital and geopolitics interests – I also engage in crimes with others.”

The same soft hand smile that destroys migrant camps and drive the vulnerable into the sea. 

French voters: “It is Russian; it is Belarus; it is the smugglers. We will vote for you to stop Le Pen.”

There are bad authoritarian regimes, e.g. Alexander Lukashenko’s, and there are good ones. Are there any principled positions? No. As a French woman I knew told me once in 2000: “seulement les ânes ne changent pas ses principes [only donkeys do no change their principles].

The actions and positions of French imperialism partly dictated by its dependence on oil. Today France get around 20% of its oil from Saudi Arabia thus its special relationship with the Middle Eastern monarchy and it gets about 12% of oil from Nigeria thus its interest in ‘stabilising’ the Sahel. In fact, around a third of oil imported by France comes from the MENA region.









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