🔴🔴🔴🔴 MULTI SUBTITLES 🔴🔴🔴🔴
Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, July 6, 2023
Participation of French citizens in the conflict in Ukraine
We noted reports in the French media about the participation of French nationals in the conflict in Ukraine. According to these reports, about 320 French citizens took or are still taking part in the hostilities there.
We have repeatedly described the formation of special recruitment mechanisms in Western countries, including France. They recruit so-called volunteers to take part in hostilities in Ukraine. De facto, they are mercenaries that are coming to kill our citizens. We believe this is taking place with at least the connivance of the official authorities. However, it is “highly likely,” as our Anglo-Saxon “friends” say, that there is official support. For our part, the Russian Defence Ministry offered all explanations on this issue. It emphasised that according to international humanitarian law, foreign mercenaries are not considered combatants, with all the ensuing consequences.
We welcome the appearance of realistic journalists in the French information space. They are starting to ask questions about the legal and moral aspects of this phenomenon. There was a recent piece in Le Monde, which concluded that France was “waging a war by proxy in Ukraine.” Finally, the French public at large has begun to get truthful information about the involvement of their country in the conflict in Ukraine. Where will these mercenaries go next? What will they do in the future or are already doing now?
We have long been saying that the countries that are supplying the Kiev regime with arms are actually accomplices in its war crimes and a party to the conflict in Ukraine. France’s military-technical aid to the Kiev regime via different channels has already exceeded 2 billion euros. By building up these arms supplies, Paris will be dragging out hostilities, provoking new military and civilian losses, and contributing to the escalation of the conflict. In addition, Paris will be fueling the black market in weapons and sponsoring international cross-border crime.
In 2023 alone, France is planning to train about 4,000 new nationalist militants. Have the residents of the Elysee Palace figured out where these French trainees will go next? If nobody in Paris can predict this, I will help them out. Nobody should be surprised if these trained Ukrainian militants are seen in future pogroms in the streets of Paris and other French cities. This is not fantasy. Take al-Qaeda for example. The Americans did a good job training its members at different bases and camps, sponsored them all over the world in a big way and supplied them with weapons. At a certain stage, al-Qaeda militants followed US orders. But later something went awry and they started using all they had learned against the US and the West that had created them.
I am sure the French people are aware of the moral responsibility for the deaths of more and more people and of the consequences of the Elysee Palace’s experiments for their homeland.
Mass protests in France
In recent years, we have seen flagrant violations of human rights and cases of police brutality in France. The UN Human Rights Council, as well as numerous human rights organisations, have been increasingly turning their attention to their growing numbers. But the murder of a 17-year-old Algerian teenager by a police officer in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre last week, and the wave of mass protests that followed, showed the world the true extent of the problems in the country that calls itself the birthplace of human rights in the world.
The non-Olympic flame was burning in many French regions and cities for a week. Riots, vandalism, and looting swept the largest cities of the country: Paris, Marseille, Nice, Lyon, and Strasbourg, as well as dozens, if not hundreds of small communes. According to official data alone, over 700 shops were looted in France, more than 5,000 cars were burned, and more than a thousand administrative and private buildings were damaged or burned down. Is it the “roses” rebelling in the “beautiful garden?” About 250 police and gendarmerie stations and about a hundred city halls in French cities were attacked.
The situation spiralled out of control in many cities, forcing local authorities to impose curfews and stop public transport. More than 3,200 citizens were arrested by law enforcement, including many minors. At the same time, more than 700 officers were injured. The government deploys up to 45,000 police and gendarmes on the French streets every day, and many of them, according to French media reports, are in a state of extreme fatigue.
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