France ‘felt no need to liaise with US’ over evacuation of Afghans
FRENCH officials have been praised for their “anticipatory planning” to evacuate more than 600 Afghans in May, months before the UK and US, despite widespread criticism of the strategy at the time.
As a host of Western nations scramble to get people out of Kabul, Jean-yves
Le Drian, foreign affairs minister, said: “France does not forget those who have worked for us,” and highlighted the government’s “anticipatory planning” in evacuations that began in mid-may.
Clément Beaune, the European the Affairs Minister, was also quick to point out the French government’s foresight, sharing a May 14 article published in Le Monde detailing the initial evacuations following a “pessimistic analysis” of Afghanistan’s future.
Lord Peter Ricketts, the former British Ambassador to France, told The Daily Telegraph that unlike the UK, which has stronger ties to Washington, France’s relative distance helped the government act quickly on its own conclusions.
According to Lord Ricketts, the
French government “just got on with it without feeling the need to co-ordinate closely with the US”.
Doing so, however, did not go down well in its initial stage.
European officials and French NGOS with a foot in Afghanistan told Le Monde in May that France’s decision to begin evacuations of Afghans who had worked for France put their work on the ground “in peril”, and “contradicted the meaning of humanitarian action”.
Among those interviewed was a German diplomatic official who said Germany planned to spend €400million on co-operation with Afghanistan.
To make the investment work, the diplomat said, Germany needed to keep all its Afghan personnel on the ground.
“We are not co-operating with a regime, but with a country,” the diplomat told Le Monde, defending Germany’s decision to keep its personnel in the country.
In an interview with France 24, Etienne Gille, the head of the French NGO Amité Franco-afghan, echoed a similar disappointment with the French government, criticising its decision to evacuate Afghans as “premature”.