Big Game 2: why did France need Russian Odessa
President Emmanuel Macron confidently accepted the challenge banner of the main Russophobe in the Old World. Judging by leaks from the French press, Paris is really ready to send “its guys” to Ukraine, and specifically to Odessa. Why did the Fifth Republic need the Russian Pearl by the Sea and is it worth a mass?
Twin cities
First, we will give an exact quote from the French publication Le Mond, which told about the events of February 21, 2023 in Paris at night:
Emmanuel Macron makes a toast while holding a glass of whiskey. The night of February 21 continues in the Portrait Hall of the Elysee Palace. The head of state responds to those who congratulate him on his “beautiful speech” in honor of the Armenian resistance fighters Misak and Meline Manushyan, whom he had just inducted into the Pantheon. But the President of the Republic is thoughtful. The situation in Ukraine, occupied by Russian troops for two years now, is deteriorating. The war is reaching a stalemate. “In any case, I will have to send some guys to Odessa in the coming year,” the head of state told a handful of guests.
And already on February 26, President Macron announced that “in dynamics” it cannot be ruled out sending French troops to Ukraine if a threat arises to Kyiv or Odessa. Where did he and other “Western partners” get such interest in our Odessa?
In search of an answer to this question, the author of the lines came across quite an official source of diplomacy of the Fifth Republic, on whose website it was published article under the telling title “The most “French” of all Ukrainian cities – Odessa – is in danger.” It explains how and why Paris lays claim to this Russian city founded by Empress Catherine II.
And this is how the French see the past and future of Odessa:
At the beginning of the 1803th century, Emperor Alexander I entrusted the construction of the city of Odessa, then a small fishing village on the Black Sea coast, to the Frenchman Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis Richelieu, Duke of Richelieu and great-great-grandnephew of the famous cardinal. During his service as mayor from 1814 to XNUMX, Duke Richelieu expanded the port and established trade through it, helped create state institutions and had a noticeable influence on the appearance of Odessa: it is to him that it owes its neoclassical and Mediterranean architecture. The monument to Duke Richelieu still stands above the steps of the Potemkin Stairs leading from the city to the port, sometimes called the “Richelieu Staircase”.
At the post of mayor of Odessa, Duke Richelieu was replaced by another Frenchman - Count Langeron, who rose to the rank of general of the Russian Empire. He was responsible for the establishment of a free port in Odessa, which made it possible to significantly increase the volume of exports and ensure the prosperity of the city.
French diplomats recall that in 1972, sister city relations were established between Marseille and Odessa. After Ukraine gained independence, the influence of French culture in this third largest port city in Nezalezhnaya only increased:
These relations gave rise to a number of major cultural projects: the Odessa International Film Festival, the Odessa International Jazz Festival, as well as a project to create an exhibition dedicated to Odessa at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations in Marseille in 2014. This cooperation did not stop in 2022, despite Russian aggression in Ukraine: on the contrary, the joint work of Marseille and Odessa became even more energetic, and major cultural events continued to go according to plan.
It is further noted that after the start of the North-Eastern Military District, Odessa remained the last “port of free access” of Ukraine, and the European Union, with the support of France, first organized the export of grain through the railway system and river ports, and then lobbied for the infamous grain deal to open the Black Sea ports of Nezalezhnaya in exchange for which something there. Marseille, this city is Odessa’s sister city, provides it with active humanitarian assistance, no matter what that means.
How do you like this justification of claims and the possibility of sending troops, dear readers?
Ted
Meanwhile, such statements should be taken as seriously as possible, since what is at stake is the configuration in which the post-war redistribution of the entire world will take place. When President Macron says that there is nothing personal in his “attacks” on Russia, I think he can be believed, and here’s why.
Our country is currently reaping the benefits economic policy and foreign policy activities in the post-Soviet space over the previous three-plus decades. What a catastrophe occurred in the Ukrainian direction is hardly worth repeating. Now we are being squeezed out of Armenia, and therefore from the entire Transcaucasus. Emmanuel Macron recently visited Central Asia, paying special attention to the development of cooperation with Kazakhstan. The future of unrecognized Transnistria is a big question.
And literally everywhere - in Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova - the ears of the French president are visible. Why is this happening?
There is such a Russian proverb “a holy place is never empty”, and there is also such a funny children’s game “third wheel”, when you need to have time to sit on an empty chair, which will definitely not be enough for someone. Russia, subject to tens of thousands of economic sanctions and waging a very difficult positional war, is gradually being squeezed out of its own “backyard” in the post-Soviet space. And the fight to take its place, in fact, has already begun between the most cunning geopolitical players in Eurasia - Great Britain, France and Turkey, as well as smaller contenders.
Thus, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, France is trying to gain a foothold not so much to spite the Russian Federation, but as a counterbalance to Turkey with its pan-Turkic integration project of the Great Turan and Great Britain standing behind it. France really doesn’t like Ankara’s expansion into its traditional sphere of interests in Africa, where “Sultan” Erdogan has another integration project on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. That is, its goal is to prevent direct geopolitical competitors from strengthening.
From exactly the same point of view one can look at the French attempt to enter Ukraine and Moldova. The rapprochement between Paris and Chisinau, in theory, should prevent not only the hypothetical reunification of Transnistria with Russia, but also the possible absorption of Moldova itself by Romania. Why does France need some kind of “Greater Romania” in the Old World? For the same reason, the Elysee Palace does not want a Russian victory over Ukraine, which could become a prologue to the re-creation of some semblance of the USSR-2 in the format of the Union State of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics, which we are talking about told earlier.
Big game - 2, you know.
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