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POLITICS

French mayors offer to take in Afghan refugees as 200 evacuated from Kabul overnight

France said on Wednesday it had evacuated almost 200 Afghan nationals from Kabul overnight as it steps up airlifts out of the Afghan capital following the Taliban takeover.

Published: 18 August 2021 13:03 CEST
French mayors offer to take in Afghan refugees as 200 evacuated from Kabul overnight
People wait to board French military transport at Kabul airport. Photo: STR/AFP

The French military is taking people out of Kabul on military planes to Abu Dhabi, from where they are to be flown on passenger aircraft to Paris. A first contingent of 41 French and foreign nationals arrived in France on Monday.

Amid the chaos of the fall of Kabul, French embassy staff moved to the airport where they continues to process visas for Afghans under threat from the Taliban.

And on Tuesday, dozens of mayors from across France offered to welcome refugees, saying “we have the capacity to welcome with dignity”.

“Nearly 200 Afghans who worked for France or who are under threat have just been evacuated from Kabul, as well as French and foreign nationals,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet on Wednesday, adding that the operations would continue.

The foreign ministry said 216 people were on board the flight, including 25 French, 184 Afghans “from civil society in need of protection” as well as seven other foreign nationals.

It said that this operation meant that most people – both of French and Afghan nationality – who had taken refuge at the French embassy in Kabul, had now been evacuated. The French embassy is now working out of the airport.

The mayor of Besançon, Anne Vignot of the Green party, wrote: “I respond to France’s duty of humanity and announce that my city of Besançon is ready to welcome Afghans who seek refuge in France. We have the capacity to welcome with dignity.”

The Green mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barseghian, added that her city “in its long tradition as a hospitable city, is ready to welcome Afghans who seek refuge in France” while the Socialist Olivier Bianchi added: “Clermont-Ferrand will be at the meeting place to welcome those who are threatened in their freedom. We must live up to our values.”

Macron in a speech on Monday night said France was ready to help activists, artists and journalists who risk being targeted because of their work.

“We will help them as it is the honour of France to be side-by-side with those who share our values,” he said. Addressing fears that the Taliban will restrict the rights of women, he added: “Afghan women have the right to live in freedom and dignity.”

“We will say very clearly to those who opt for war, obscurantism and blind violence that they have chosen isolation,” he said.

But he stirred controversy with other parts of his speech, which called on EU leaders to work together on a response that was “robust, coordinated and united” to prevent irregular migration by harmonising criteria and showing European solidarity.

“We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows that would endanger the migrants and risk encouraging trafficking of all kinds,” he said.

France in July stopped deporting people to Afghanistan because of the security situation.

Member comments

  1. I sincerely hope this government and others are able to separate out the terrorists from among the legitimate refugees. We don’t seem to even be trying to do this here in the USA.

  2. I find it strange that these Mayors are eager to house Afghan refugees yet seem to show no interest whatsoever in the existing thousands of migrants living rough in the Pas-de-Calais who risk death crossing the Channel to you know where.

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UKRAINE

Macron urges ‘tangible’ NATO security guarantees for Kyiv

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday called on the West to offer Ukraine "tangible and credible" security guarantees as it battles Russia's invasion.

Published: 1 June 2023 08:38 CEST
Macron urges 'tangible' NATO security guarantees for Kyiv

Stressing that Ukraine “is today protecting Europe”, Macron said in Bratislava that it is in the West’s interest that Kyiv have security assurances from NATO.

“That is why I’m in favour, and this will be the subject of collective talks in the following weeks… to offer tangible and credible security guarantees to Ukraine,” he added.

He said various NATO members could provide these guarantees for the time being as Ukraine waits to join the alliance.

“We have to build something between the security provided to Israel and full-fledged membership,” Macron said.

The French head of state is on a visit to Slovakia, where he delivered a speech at an event organised by the international affairs think tank Globsec.

The event, focussed on regional security issues, comes in the run-up to the NATO summit in Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11th-12th.

Macron recalled that he once called the Western defence alliance “brain dead” but said Russia’s invasion last year “had jolted NATO awake”.

“We need to help Ukraine today with all means to carry out an effective counter-offensive” against Russian forces, Macron said.

“It’s what we are currently doing. We have to intensify our efforts because what will happen in the next few months offers a chance even for… a lasting peace.”

Macron also called on EU nations to buy European arms and acquire in-depth strike capabilities.

“It is up to us Europeans to in the future have our own ability to defend ourselves,” he said.

“A Europe of defence, a European pillar within NATO, is indispensable. It’s the only way to be credible… in the long-term,” he said.

The French leader also called for EU enlargement, to bring more countries into the fold.

The European Union should “invent several formats” to meet the membership aspirations of countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, he said.

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine itself are among the countries which have applied to join the European bloc, but conforming to the accession rules can be a difficult and timely procedure.

“Yes, it (the EU) must enlarge. Yes, it must be rethought in terms of its governance and its aims. Yes, it must innovate, no doubt, to invent several formats and clarify the aims of each of these formats,” Macron declared.

“This is the only way to meet the legitimate expectations of the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine, which must join the European Union, and to maintain the geopolitical effectiveness, but also the climate, the rule of law and the economic integration of the European Union as it exists today,” he insisted.

The two alternatives are to make candidate nations “wait indefinitely” or to let them swiftly join the existing EU structure with the risk that the bloc will no longer be able to function.

Macron will next visit Moldova on Thursday where he will meet with fellow European leaders, including from outside the European Union.

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