The French Le Figaro, known for its hostility towards Azerbaijan, has published a long piece under the screaming headline: “Azerbaijan: Baku’s great offensive to discredit France”.
Frankly speaking, after reading this piece, one feels very much like sending its authors, and also the editors who allowed this nonsense to be published, to some kind of professional literacy course. Someone should explain to them the ABCs of journalism and politics. Here, for example, the authors indignantly squeal: it turns out that nasty Azerbaijan, where, in France’s opinion, there is not enough democracy, “is ramping up efforts to manipulate information in order to discredit the image of Paris”, because President Ilham Aliyev does not like Paris supporting Armenians!
Frankly speaking, it is difficult to take this seriously. Did Paris seriously believe that France would give weapons to Armenia, make provocative statements, all of this in the most critical period of the peace treaty preparation, essentially derailing the peace process, and Baku would simply not notice all this squawking and crowing? Or will not make any retaliatory moves?
Then the French newspaper gets specific. And spectacularly puts its foot in its mouth. Here, for example, Le Figaro loudly takes offense: “Young French expat Martin Ryan has been in a Baku prison for five weeks. His arrest by Azerbaijani security services on charges of espionage preceded the expulsion of two employees of the French embassy in Azerbaijan on December 27.” And yet they “forget” to mention that two years ago, in an interview with ARB TV channel, this “young expat” himself said that he had a degree in “military and geopolitical history”, worked in the field of military and global security until 2015, that, finally, according to the father of this “young expat”, French intelligence in Baku induced him to not quite voluntary cooperation… Is one of the largest newspapers in France unaware of that? Or is it deliberately lying?
Frankly speaking, such profound ignorance on the part of Le Figaro is hardly believable. If only because it continues to shamelessly lie about many other aspects as well.
Another gem from the French journalists: oh, Baku is trying to discredit France! Some organization, Viginium, “which fights against foreign digital interference, published a report on a large-scale campaign linked to Azerbaijan to discredit France as the organizer of the next Olympic Games. The organization has found thousands of materials with images of riots in Paris and calls for a boycott of the sporting event on a global scale”, but “the accounts, most of which appear to be Internet trolls, are mostly linked to Azerbaijan”.
Well, if Le Figaro did not get it then, let us say it again: do they believe in Paris that the riots in the streets of the French capital were organized by Azerbaijani special services? That the rats and bedbugs infesteing Paris were brought in from Baku by some secret routes? Or maybe it was us who had Madame Anne Hidalgo, who found the time to be photographed against the background of trucks with provocative posters “aid to Artsakh”, but not the time to deal with bedbugs and rats, elected as mayor of Paris? Finally, are the journalists of Le Figaro familiar with the saying about a bad workman always blaming his tools?
But Le Figaro continues to embarrass itself to the end. And in an intriguing tone it reveals another “evidence of Azerbaijani interference”. It turns out that “in connection with the visit of the Minister of Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu to New Caledonia, the Azerbaijani AzerTAC agency sent there two women posing as ‘journalists'”, but they were actually spies.
Frankly speaking, this is simply distasteful. One of France’s leading newspapers should have at least the rudiments of professional solidarity and respect for the profession, even if it gets its talking points and instructions straight from the Élysée Palace. Not to mention basic fact-checking skills. So that, in trying to fling mud, like monkeys in a zoo, at Azerbaijani colleagues, one does not end up hitting… Well, say, the press service of one’s own Foreign Ministry.
As a matter of fact, Shahla Agalarova, who, according to Le Figaro and those who pull its strings, is “a spy who pretends to be a journalist”, has been working as AzerTAC staff correspondent in France since 2010 and is annually accredited by the French Foreign Ministry. So, Le Figaro dipped the latter’s press service in a scandal. The internationally adopted procedure for accreditation of foreign correspondents at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is so well thought out that it is impossible for a person “pretending to be a journalist” to get it. Le Figaro is the one that is allowed to publish articles without having even the slightest idea of journalistic professionalism. As for the second Azerbaijani journalist, Aygun Hasanova, she worked at AzerTAC for 10 years, from 2010 to 2020, then for two years at ATV TV channel, and returned to AzerTAC again in 2023. Did the French intelligence together with the embassy fail to get even this absolutely open information to their leadership? What were they doing in Baku in this case? Macron can, of course, change the chiefs of intelligence services like gloves, but it seems that there is a lack of professionalism not only on the upper floors.
Another grievance Le Figaro has against Azerbaijan: Baku brazenly invited activists of the anti-colonial movement in French colonies, first of all New Caledonia, to the forums of the Non-Aligned Movement! So what? Does Paris believe that Azerbaijan is an “overseas department” of France? Or do Le Figaro‘s editors maybe believe that the “world government” sits in Paris? And Azerbaijan must ask France for permission, who to invite, who not to invite and what position to take regarding decolonization of New Caledonia? Lastly, have the organizers of clamorous actions of support to Karabakh separatists in Paris forgotten their own “track record”? Did they imagine that Azerbaijan, with its position in the Non-Aligned Movement, will not be able to respond to France? Of course, one does encounter incompetence and inflated self-esteem in politics, but this takes the cake… This requires medical assistance rather than political education.
But Le Figaro will not rest. The journalists of this DISrespectable publication interview… Emin Huseynov. Even the “target audience” has already started to forget about him, but Le Figaro is willing to deal even with this kind of stale political trash. And this character, who childishly enjoys the attention of, as he believes, “influential journalists” and obediently mutters exactly what they want to hear: that the evil authoritarian government of Azerbaijan needs an “external enemy”, and now France has been chosen as this “external enemy”. One wonders what degree of clinical naivety this idea is intended for. Anyone who has been following the news on the Azerbaijani-French track knows very well that relations were damaged on the initiative of Paris. So, if anyone was looking for an “external enemy”, it was certainly not Baku.
Moreover, here is a reminder that Azerbaijan has not renamed the French Quarter in the White City, closed the French Lyceum or defiantly uprooted a tree once planted by now former French President François Hollande. But the French authorities manage to erase all references to Azerbaijan in the “Azerbaijan Park” of Évian-les-Bains, wrap the monument to Khurshudbanu Natavan in some plastic film and do not even bother to look for the vandals who damaged it…
Well, we can only recall a fragment from a recent interview of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on the relations between Azerbaijan and France: “We are witnessing this now not only in France, but also in most European countries, when people with significant authority in their own countries and in the international arena left the stage and some random people, populists and demagogues came instead, and we can see what this has led to.”
Unfortunately, we are witnessing the same processes in French journalism.
