This is the principle of communicating vessels adapted to diplomacy. Each time the alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia falters, the agreement between the kingdom and France starts again. This theorem was observed in December, when the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, treated as an outcast by Washington for his alleged role in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, welcomed Emmanuel Macron to Jeddah.
The axiom was to be verified once again, Thursday, July 28, with the reception at the Elysee Palace of the number two Saudi, invited by the French president to a working dinner. The man nicknamed “MBS” certainly received a visit last week from American President Joe Biden, resigned to reconnecting with the prince, in the hope of seeing the latter increase Saudi oil production and thus trigger a drop in the price of gasoline. But the tenant of the White House left empty-handed, a sign of the persistent cold between the two men.
A breach into which Emmanuel Macron seems to want to rush. The Head of State was to hasten his return from Guinea-Bissau, where he was still on Thursday morning, on the fourth day of his tour of Africa, to welcome his guest at the scheduled time, 8:30 p.m., in the courtyard of the Elysee. Not content with having been the first major leader to visit Arabia after the Khashoggi affair, the French president has become the first statesman to receive the Saudi dolphin in a major Western capital since this scandal.
Prevent the gap from widening further
Beyond the weight of Arabia in the Middle East, a factor which, in the mind of Mr. Macron, made the quarantine of Mohammed Ben Salman counter-productive, several parameters explain the honors that the Elysée grants him. The war in Ukraine, first of all. Since February 24, the conflict has monopolized the Europeans and their American allies, who have been able to close ranks against Vladimir Putin’s Russia, both within the European Union and NATO. For Paris, it is now urgent to turn to the countries which refuse to choose sides, in Africa as in the Gulf, to prevent the gap from widening further with them.
The pending fate of the Iran nuclear deal also matters. The relaunch of this arrangement, from which former US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018, remains blocked by persistent disputes between the United States and Iran. On Tuesday, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, submitted a compromise text to the parties, urging them to accept it to avoid a “dangerous nuclear crisis”. Tehran continues to fail to meet its initial commitments and to approach the moment when it will have accumulated enough fissile material to equip itself with a bomb, in a few months.
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