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The strategic partnership that underpins the enduring Saudi-French relationship

The strength of the political ties and strategic partnership between France and Saudi Arabia is evident in the large number of visits undertaken by their leaders and officials in recent years. (Supplied)
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Updated 29 July 2022
Lama Alhamawi
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The strategic partnership that underpins the enduring Saudi-French relationship

  • Strength of political ties reflected in the numerous visits undertaken by Saudi and French leaders and officials
  • Relations have expanded to include military assistance, advanced technology, investments and cultural cooperation
Updated 29 July 2022
Lama Alhamawi

RIYADH: The arrival of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in France on a state visit continues a tradition of frequent high-level exchanges between the two friendly countries.

The strength of the political ties and strategic partnership between France and Saudi Arabia is evident in the large number of visits undertaken by their leaders and officials in recent years.

Since 2017, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has visited France once. During the same period, France’s foreign minister has visited Saudi Arabia three times, while French President Emmanuel Macron has visited the Kingdom once.

The last official diplomatic visit occurred in December 2021, when President Macron met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah as part of a tour of Gulf countries. 

Formal relations between France and the Arabian Peninsula can be traced back to 1839, when the former opened a consulate in Jeddah — its first diplomatic post in the region.

Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz, the future king of Saudi Arabia, was the first member of the royal family to pay an official visit to France in 1919. Full diplomatic relations began when France recognized the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, the forerunner to the unified Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, established in 1932.

In his role as foreign minister, Prince Faisal again visited Paris after France became one of the first countries to recognize the kingdom.

In 1967, King Faisal visited French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris — his first state visit as ruler of the Kingdom. Since then, the relationship between the two countries has flourished and become closer than ever.

Numerous agreements have been signed between them, from military assistance and advanced technology to economy and cultural cooperation.

The Kingdom’s relations with France are built on the common interests of “preserving security in a troubled region, a common commitment to combating terrorism, and a convergence of views on regional crises,” according to the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs’s website.

Saudi Arabia and France have robust business ties, as shown both by the economic history and total trade volume between the two. In 2021, France imported $3.8 billion worth of Saudi goods, while it exported $3.23 billion to the Kingdom, according to the UN’s Comtrade international trade database.

Banque Saudi Fransi is a Saudi joint stock company established by a Saudi royal decree in 1977, and is associated with the French Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank. The bank now boasts more than 100 branches across the Kingdom and more internationally.

The Saudi-French Business Council, established in 2003, has held dozens of sessions to discuss bilateral trade and investment.

The two countries have not just engaged in economic relations with one another, but have come together to assist other nations by providing joint economic relief.

In April this year, Saudi Arabia and France announced a joint development fund to provide $76 million for the development of food safety, health, education, energy, water, and internal security forces in crisis-stricken Lebanon.

Perhaps no sector of Saudi-French relations is sturdier or more readily observed than that of joint cultural and artistic ventures. In 2018, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s minister of culture, and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, signed an intergovernmental agreement to collaborate on the development of the cultural and tourism destination AlUla.

Since this agreement, France and Saudi Arabia have worked closely and intensely on AlUla’s development. Also in 2018, the Royal Commission for AlUla signed an agreement with Campus France to train 68 Saudi hospitality employees to work at AlUla, and the next year, it was announced that the site would be home to a luxury resort designed by award-winning French architect Jean Nouvel.

Ludovic Pouille, the current French ambassador to the Kingdom, spoke to Arab News earlier this month about the continuing cultural cooperation.

“In 2002, the very first Franco-Saudi archaeological excavation, led by the French archaeologist Laila Nehme, was launched in Mada’in Saleh,” he told Arab News.

“This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of this cooperation, which has expanded with no less than 16 Franco-Saudi archaeological missions in the Kingdom.”

He noted that several agreements had been signed in recent years to open training centers for Saudi youth in collaboration with the French Football Federation.

This year in May, the Saudi-French Business Council hosted a high-level French delegation representing the entertainment sector to discuss potential French investment in the Kingdom’s flourishing entertainment industry.

Campus France’s initiative is far from the only joint educational venture between France and the Kingdom. In 2021, at a dinner in Riyadh, Bertrand Besancenot, the then-French ambassador to Saudi Arabia, stated that 1,500 Saudi students were studying at French universities, and that many of these universities signed agreements aiming to boost the number of Saudi students in the country.

The two states, both G20 members, also have clear visions for progress and modernization. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Saudi Vision 2030 in 2016, while France launched its own French Vision 2030 a few months ago. The goals of both plans include energy transition to renewables, digital transitions, and sustained economic growth.

France has long stood in solidarity with the Kingdom in the face of military and militant attacks on Saudi Arabia. In December 1979, France sent advisers from its elite GIGN special police and trained members of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate who ended the siege of the Grand Mosque in Makkah by armed fanatics.

In March this year, France condemned attacks carried out on Saudi territory by the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi militia.

France is also a major provider of defense equipment and technologies to Saudi Arabia, a relationship underscored by the $12 billion in deals signed between the two countries in 2015.

In 2019, Saudi Arabian Military Industries announced at a military exhibition in Abu Dhabi that the Kingdom had signed an agreement with France’s Naval Group to build warships in Saudi Arabia. Two years later, SAMI announced joint investments with the French Airbus and Figeac Aero companies.

Against this background, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to France is expected to cement ties in all areas of the two countries’ diplomatic relations.

 

 

FASTFACT

History of modern France




(SHUTTERSTOCK)

The French Revolution of 1789 saw France transform from a monarchy to a republic, which came under the control of Napoleon Bonaparte 10 years later.

After he became emperor of the First French Empire from 1804-1814, his armies conquered large swaths of continental Europe. Another monarchy emerged from the wake of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, and Napoleon’s nephew created the Second Empire in 1852, becoming the last monarch to rule over France.

He was ousted and the monarchy was replaced by the Third French Republic in 1870. Throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, France maintained a large colonial empire across West Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

France sided with the Allied Powers during the Second World War, but was split in two during the conflict, with most of the country controlled by a collaborationist, pro-German government.

The country slowly recovered after the end of the war, but long wars in its colonies in Indochina (now Vietnam) and Algeria saw it ousted from these regions, and by the 1960s, most of France’s former colonies had achieved independence.

France has been a full member of the UN Security Council and NATO since the end of the Second World War, and played a vital role in the establishment of the EU. France has a large Muslim and Arab population owing to its former colonies in north Africa, and many of these populations suffer from social alienation and high unemployment rates.

The country has been the site of unrest and protests against the enforcement of strict secular policies and controversial bills, some of which have attempted to ban the wearing of headscarves or traditional Muslim face coverings in public.

 

Topics: CP Greece France

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Phone documentary details Afghan women’s struggle under Taliban govt

Afghan women prepare air fryer apple chips at a factory in Herat on November 17, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
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Phone documentary details Afghan women’s struggle under Taliban govt

  • Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public areas
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP

LOS ANGELES, United States: A rare inside account of the Taliban authorities’ impact on Afghan women hits screens next week with the smartphone-filmed documentary “Bread & Roses.”
Produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games“) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, this feature-length film immerses the viewer in the daily struggles endured by half the population of Afghanistan since the withdrawal of US troops paved the way for Taliban leaders to seize power.
“When Kabul fell in 2021 all women lost their very basic rights. They lost their rights to be educated, to work,” Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles.
“Some of them were doctors and had high degrees, and then their lives were completely changed overnight.”
The documentary, which debuted at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul.
She tutored them on how to film themselves with their phones — resulting in a moving depiction of the intertwined stories of three Afghan women.
We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure, suddenly propelled to the head of protests against the Taliban government.
Sharifa, a former civil servant, is stripped of her job and cloistered at home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof to get a breath of fresh air.
And Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, who watches helplessly as her homeland changes.

“The restrictions are getting tighter and tighter right now,” Mani told AFP on the film’s Los Angeles red carpet.
And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care, she said.
“The women of Afghanistan didn’t receive the support they deserved from the international community.”
Since their return to power, Taliban officials have established a “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.
Women are gradually being erased from public spaces: Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public areas.
A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public.
The Taliban authorities follow an austere brand of Islam, whose interpretations of holy texts are disputed by many scholars.
“The Taliban claim to represent the culture and religion while they’re a very small group of men who do not actually represent the diversity of the country,” Yousafzai, an executive producer of the film, told AFP.
“Islam does not prohibit a girl from learning, Islam does not prohibit a woman from working,” said the Pakistani activist, whom the Pakistani Taliban tried to assassinate when she was 15.
The documentary captures the first year after the fall of Kabul, including moments of bravery when women speak out.
“You closed universities and schools, you might as well kill me!” a protester shouts at a man threatening her during a demonstration.
These gatherings of women — under the slogan “Work, bread, education!” — are methodically crushed by Taliban authorities.
Protesters are beaten, some are arrested, others kidnapped.
Slowly, the resistance fades, but it doesn’t die: some Afghan women are now trying to educate themselves through clandestine courses.
Three years after the Taliban fighters seized power from a hapless and corrupt civilian administration, no countries have officially recognized their new government.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election to the US presidency, Taliban leaders have made it known that they hope to “open a new chapter” in relations between Kabul and Washington, where a more transactional foreign policy outlook is expected to prevail.
For Mani, that rings alarm bells.
Giving up on defending the rights of Afghan women would be a serious mistake — and one the West could come to regret, she said.
The less educated Afghan women are, the more vulnerable their sons are to the ideology that birthed the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
“If we are paying the price today, you might pay the price tomorrow,” she said.
“Bread & Roses” begins streaming on Apple TV+ on November 22.
 

 

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Australian writers send Middle East reading list to MPs to boost understanding of region

Updated 55 min 17 sec ago
Arab News
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Australian writers send Middle East reading list to MPs to boost understanding of region

  • Initiative, named Summer Reading for MPs campaign, aims to encourage wider and more nuanced reading on Middle East conflicts
Updated 55 min 17 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: More than 90 Australian authors and literary figures have sent a list of books to every federal parliamentarian in a bid to foster a deeper understanding of the Middle East among political leaders, it was revealed on Monday.

The initiative, named the Summer Reading for MPs campaign, aims to encourage wider and more nuanced reading on the history and complexities of the region’s conflicts.

Each of Australia’s 227 MPs and senators will receive the same set of five books, encompassing nonfiction, fiction, and reference works, The Guardian reported.

Notable writers such as Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood, Michelle de Kretser, and JM Coetzee are among the campaign’s supporters. The book selection has also received endorsements from the Jewish Council of Australia and the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network.

The five chosen books are: “Balcony over Jerusalem” by journalist John Lyons; “A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflic by Jewish historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe; “The Hundred Years’ War” by Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi; “Palestine A-Z,” an alphabetized reference by Irish author Kate Thompson; and “The Sunbird,” a novella by Lebanese-Australian writer Sara Haddad. 

In an accompanying letter to MPs, the group underscored the importance of these “authoritative, highly readable books” in addressing what they see as a deficit in the public’s and politicians’ understanding of the conflict.

“The political debate in Australia and internationally rarely touches on the issues, events, and historical analyzes that these books reveal — despite their direct relevance to what is happening today,” the letter highlighted.

The writers stressed that the campaign was not about shifting opinions but broadening perspectives.

“We’re not asking anyone to change their personal opinions or public positions. We just ask that politicians consider reading one or more of these books in the hope that they might inform and illuminate discussion on the ghastly situation we have been watching unfold across the Middle East,” they said.

Melbourne architect Marcus O’Reilly, one of the campaign’s initiators, said frustration over the quality of political discourse and media reporting on Middle Eastern issues spurred the project.

“It just occurred to me that if people were reading some of these books, people’s responses might be amped up a bit more,” O’Reilly said. “They’re not pushing a particular direction and that was the whole idea.”

Aviva Tuffield, a publisher and fellow originator, highlighted the role reading plays in fostering empathy and understanding.

“The summer is for reading. There’s well-known summer reading lists like Obama’s, and the Grattan Institute’s. It might be good for politicians who aren’t engaged (on this issue) and only get the talking points to do some reading (of their own),” she said.

In recent weeks, campaign organizers have met with a cross-section of MPs and senators from all parties, delivering the books in person where possible.

Many MPs expressed a degree of caution when addressing the Middle East conflict publicly, with one regional MP noting it was the issue that drew the most constituent correspondence. Despite this, the initiative has been welcomed.

“All, so far, had been receptive to receiving history books and literature as a measured way to learn more about the issues,” Tuffield confirmed.

The campaign has also garnered support from a wide range of Australian authors, including Kim Scott, Anna Funder, Nam Le, Chloe Hooper, Anita Heiss, and Trent Dalton.

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New Senegalese president to face key challenges

Updated 48 min 27 sec ago
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New Senegalese president to face key challenges

  • Former president Macky Sall, who headed an opposition coalition, on Monday congratulated Pastef on its win
Updated 48 min 27 sec ago
AFP

DAKAR: A likely absolute majority for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s Pastef party in Senegal’s legislative election would empower him to pursue his ambitious 25-year agenda, though his first challenge will be coming up with a budget amid a fiscal crisis.
Faye sought a clear parliamentary majority in Sunday’s vote to implement the reform agenda that helped sweep him to power in a landslide election victory in March.
But analysts say creating a budget catering both to his voters’ needs and to the International Monetary Fund, with which his government is currently in talks, will be challenging.
Former president Macky Sall, who headed an opposition coalition, on Monday congratulated Pastef on its win. Former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who ran against Faye in the presidential election, also conceded defeat, as did other opposition leaders.

SPEEDREAD

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye sought a clear parliamentary majority in Sunday’s vote to implement the reform agenda that helped sweep him to power in a landslide election victory in March.

Senegal’s sovereign debt rose in price on Monday, Tradeweb data showed, while most other African nations’ bonds lost ground. The yield on its 2033 dollar bond was down about 10 basis points at 9.28 percent.
“If confirmed by the electoral bodies, Pastef’s victory could give a free hand in passing budgets and implementing its programmatic reforms,” said Wendyam Lankoande, a consultant at Africa Practice.
But, he noted, voters are “looking for quick solutions to unemployment, rising cost of living, and limited reach of public services in remote rural areas in the hinterland.” In September, a government audit revealed that Senegal’s debt and budget deficit were much wider than the previous administration had reported. A $1.9 billion IMF program agreed in June 2023 has been on hold since. Negotiations with the IMF to restart disbursements could last until mid-2025.
“We see Pastef’s majority as a positive development as it clears the path for President Faye and (Prime Minister Ousmane) Sonko to begin work on a budget for 2025 that aligns broadly with IMF requirements,” said Leeuwner Esterhuysen, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa.
“That said, some of these requirements won’t necessarily go down well with Senegalese citizens.”
He said the Fund was likely to show some leniency, as it appears to have good relations with the new administration.

“We think the government may be able to delay the implementation of harsh measures such as removing VAT exemptions on farming inputs or increasing household electricity prices, while energy subsidies will be phased out gradually to limit the impact on consumers,” Esterhuysen said.

 

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British artist loses architecture award over Israeli cultural boycott

Updated 18 November 2024
Arab News
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British artist loses architecture award over Israeli cultural boycott

  • Athens-based James Bridle was awarded the €10,000 Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize in June
  • It was withdrawn with the foundation citing a new German resolution on antisemitism after Bridle signed open letter supporting a boycott in October
Updated 18 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: A British artist has lost an award from a German foundation after signing an open letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.

James Bridle, who is based in Athens, Greece, was told in June he would receive the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize for “outstanding contributions to architectural theory.”

However, he learned on Sunday he would no longer receive the award and the €10,000 ($10,561) prize that goes with it because he had signed the letter, along with thousands of other people. Published on LitHub at the end of October, it stated: “We will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”

The foundation said: “We respect the right to express political views, especially since the foundation does not accuse James Bridle of antisemitism.

“But the foundation can neither support nor be associated with a call for cultural isolation of Israel.”

The decision to rescind the award came after the Bundestag, the German parliament, this month passed a controversial resolution on antisemitism. Titled “Never Again is Now: Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life in Germany,” it was proposed following the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

It states that “the Bundestag reaffirms its decision to ensure that no organizations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support.”

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have criticized the resolution for limiting freedom of expression in Germany.

The Schelling Architecture Foundation is named for its founder, Erich Schelling, who according to the foundation’s website was a member of the Nazi party between 1937 and 1945.

Bridle told the Guardian newspaper: “Although they are clearly not prepared to state it outright, the foundation’s decision is an accusation of antisemitism, which is abhorrent. It is particularly so given the organization’s own history.”

He added that it was ironic that the foundation’s jury had praised his 2022 book “Ways of Being,” which discussed Israel’s “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank, and “the relationship between genocide and ecocide.”

A spokesperson for the foundation said other awards nominees had been informed of the decision. The awards ceremony is due to take place on Wednesday.

“We have to be prepared for there to be further reactions,” the spokesperson added.

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G20 leaders gather for deadlocked talks on climate, Middle East, Ukraine wars

Updated 18 November 2024
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G20 leaders gather for deadlocked talks on climate, Middle East, Ukraine wars

  • Wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are set to feature prominently in discussions in Brazil
  • Biden will attend his last summit of world’s leading economies with China’s XI as the most influential leader
Updated 18 November 2024
AFP

Rio de Janeiro: G20 leaders began arriving for a summit in Brazil on Monday to try reignite deadlocked climate talks and overcome their differences on the Middle East and Ukraine wars ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

US President Joe Biden will attend his last summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck leader eclipsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most influential leader at this year’s meeting.

Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is using his hosting duties to promote issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change and taxing the super-rich.

But the wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are also set to feature prominently in the discussions.

A Brazilian foreign ministry source said Monday that some countries wanted to renegotiate a draft summit communique.

“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” he told AFP.

Biden’s decision Sunday to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike targets inside Russia — a major policy shift — could prompt European allies to also review their stance.

G20 leaders are also under pressure to try rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled on the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for G20 members, who account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership” to facilitate a deal.

Security is tight for the gathering, which comes days after a failed bomb attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected far-right extremist, who killed himself in the process.

The get-together will cap a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden which took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.

Biden, who has looked to burnish his legacy as time runs down on his presidency, insisted in the Amazon that his climate record would survive another Trump mandate.

All eyes at the stalled COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan are on Rio to break an impasse over how to raise $1 trillion a year for developing countries to cope with global warming.

Rich countries want fast-developing economies like China and Gulf states to also put their hands in their pockets.

The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fueled by a record drought blamed at least partly on climate change.

At the last G20 in India, leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.

Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.

Lula, 79, told Brazil’s GloboNews channel on Sunday that he did not want the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to take the focus off global poverty.

“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.

The summit opens on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”

Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.

Lula had faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentinian President Javier Milei, a libertarian Trump uber-fan who met the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, told AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text, however. He did not elaborate.

But the Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.

Topics: G20 climate

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