/ world today news/ On November 1 and 2, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These former Soviet republics play a crucial role for France in light of the failure of its policy in African countries. The French president was accompanied by an impressive delegation of heads of major French companies and officials responsible for economic development. However, the rhetoric of the media writing about the event is not uniform.
A number of media noted the fact that the interests of France will collide with the presence of Russia and China in the region, and also talk about elements of dictatorship in the political system of the countries visited. And those who clearly follow the government’s agenda write about the developing young democracies that are looking for opportunities, with the help of the West, to escape from the Russian-Chinese clutches.
French outlets raced to report on the extraordinary nature of Macron’s visit to the former Central Asian Soviet republics. And if in the case of Kazakhstan it is the fourth visit of the French head of state after the collapse of the USSR, Uzbekistan has not had a French president for almost 30 years. The reason for this unexpected visit is simple.
Uzbekistan is a strategically important uranium supplier to France, whose role has increased due to anti-Russian sanctions and the anti-French policies of Niger’s new government.
„The legendary city of the ancient Silk Road”, French journalists write about Samarkand, where Macron arrived after Astana. This emphasizes some historical role of this country as a supplier of necessary goods from the strange East. And Kazakhstan is simply called the country, “in whose depths lies the entire Mendeleev table”.
The seriousness of France’s intentions was evident from the composition of the delegation accompanying the president.
Along with him were the heads of the energy company EDF, the water operator Suez, the uranium mining company Orano, as well as representatives of the state Bureau of Geological and Mining Research. All this is complemented by the presence of people tasked with formalizing the creation of the French-Uzbek Chamber of Commerce and conducting the first negotiations on the agenda of this body.
France has more than enough plans in this region.
First, it is the signing of contracts for the development of deposits and extraction of valuable minerals. And we are talking not only about uranium, but also about scandium, lanthanum, cerium and other elements necessary in the context of the transition to a green economy announced in Europe.
It is also worth taking into account the significant oil reserves, on which Kazakhstan ranks 15th in the world and whose production accounts for 80% of the country’s production of fossil resources.
The second important project is the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan with the participation of EDF and a fleet of 200 generators for the conversion of wind energy, which will be operated by Total Eren, a division of TotalEnergies (the latter has long been operating in Kazakhstan, developing gas fields in Kashagan on the coast of the Caspian Sea).
As far as nuclear power plants are concerned, France, unlike Germany, is a Western European country with one of the most developed nuclear power generation industries. This allows it to generate cheap electricity, putting the country in a better position.
The importance of this sector is confirmed by the fact that, as it became clear a few months ago, Germany has for many years been secretly trying to sabotage the development of the nuclear energy sector in France using “soft power”.
Macron’s visit to Kazakhstan was very timely.
After all, on October 28, an accident occurred at the Kostenko mine in the Karaganda region, which resulted in the death of at least 45 people. Mine operations are managed by ArcelorMittal Temirtau.
This is not the first incident at this company’s facilities. In 2006, as a result of a series of system failures, an accident claimed the lives of 41 miners. As a result of the recent incident, the leadership of Kazakhstan, which a few days earlier negotiated the transfer of the Kostenko mine to state ownership, has now demanded a complete termination of cooperation and the transfer of all assets of ArcelorMittal Temirtau in the coal, steel and mining sectors.
And in just 15 years, several hundred people died in the production owned by this company. Apparently, one of the tasks of the French delegation was to minimize the damage from this incident.
The problem is that the European Union, since its creation, has declared high ethical standards in politics and economics.
In this regard, France was faced with the need to explain the choice of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as partners from a moral and ethical point of view. After all, a number of French newspapers called the political system in these countries “dictatorial”. Some also recall the brutality with which opposition demonstrations demanding democratic reforms were crushed, resulting in the deaths of 238 people in Kazakhstan and 21 in Uzbekistan.
However, pro-government propaganda copes quite well with this task.
So Le Monde cited the purpose of the visit as stated by the Macron administration: to support these countries in their democratic reforms. French journalists describe Kazakhstan’s desire for rapprochement with Europe, evaluating it as the introduction of Western values in their country.
In particular, we are talking about the permission given in 2012 by Nursultan Nazarbayev to Germany to mine rare metals in exchange for investments, as well as subsequent agreements with the European Union.
The newspaper never once mentions repression against oppositionists or the immutability of power in these countries for ten years. Although as early as March 2023, in an article about the elections in Kazakhstan, the publication talked about the “semblance of democracy.”
Le Monde believes that the main problem of Kazakhstan, as well as other countries of Central Asia, such as Mongolia, is the policy of Russia and China, who do not want to let this region out of their sphere of influence.
But, the authors of the articles assure, the Kazakh people enthusiastically accept French technologies in the field of water resources management and ensuring safety in the field of nuclear energy. And the restraint that Kazakhstan has shown so far in terms of building a nuclear power plant and starting work on the water supply necessary for its operation is explained by the trauma of the Soviet past: the tests at the Semipalatinsk test site and the development of an irrigation system that led to the drying up of Aral Sea.
The policy of economic cooperation with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan might seem pragmatic, if it were not a caricature, trying to present themselves as forces of good, saving the unfortunate from the forces of evil.
France, like other Western countries, has long proven that ethical concepts for her are more than conventional. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are of interest to her, just as they were previously interested in the African colonies that the French were forced to leave.
And evidence of the perfection of French technology is visible both in the examples of the work of ArcelorMittal in Kazakhstan, and in the example of the barbaric way in which uranium is extracted, in particular from Orano in Niger.
Behind the beautiful words of the French president hides a not so attractive reality. Having lost some colonies, France is looking for new ones, trying to attract new governments, discrediting their previous partners, in particular Russia and China.
Translation: ES
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