French President Emmanuel Macron is under fire from human rights groups over the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, to the European country.
On the Crown Prince’s first visit to Europe since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a crime that took place in 2018 in Turkey and that, according to the CIA, would have been approved by MBS, he was received at Paris-Orly airport by Finance Minister Bruno. Le Maire, and then went to the Élysée Palace to have dinner with the French president. The day before, he had been received in Greece.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne claimed that Macron would talk about human rights with the prince, but mainly about an increase in Saudi oil production in a scenario of energy insecurity caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, told Agence France-Presse that she was “deeply disturbed by the visit, because of what it means for our world and what it means for Jamal and people like him”.
The head of Human Rights Watch in France, Bénédicte Jeannerod, wrote on Twitter that MBS could “apparently count on Emmanuel Macron to rehabilitate him on the international stage, despite the atrocious murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the ruthless repression of all criticism of authorities Saudi Arabia and war crimes in Yemen”.
Last week, US President Joe Biden visited MBS in Saudi Arabia, after saying during the 2020 campaign that he would treat the country as a “pariah” due to the murder of the journalist inside the Arab country’s consulate in Istanbul, in Turkey.
Biden, who was accused of “treason” due to the decision to make the visit, claimed that he confronted the crown prince about Khashoggi’s death. The Saudi would have replied that he was “not personally responsible” for the assassination, to which the American president would have added that “that he thought he was”.
