Human rights groups slammed in a joint statement French President Emmanuel Macron for hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) while ‘lecturing others’ about arming Russia.
The visit has drawn the ire of human rights groups that are criticising Macron for “rehabilitating” the Saudi leader’s international image.
Macron and Mohammed bin Salman met on Friday for a “working lunch” at the president’s official residence, Elysee Palace, where the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and regional issues.
The visit comes ahead of a global financial summit taking place in France. France is also a major weapons and defence supplier to Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia.
Rights groups say that Macron’s welcoming of Mohammed bin Salman, who has launched an economic pivot as well as a crackdown on civil society and rights activists, points to France’s hypocrisy, as it has slammed countries for staying neutral when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Macron has been silent regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, despite a call from Amnesty International urging the French president to bring up the issue of several young men in Saudi Arabia who are facing execution.
“While President Macron is lecturing other countries about international law and scolding them for harming human rights by selling weapons to Russia, he’s only been too eager to wine and dine the murderous tyrant of Saudi Arabia in a mad rush to sell him as many weapons as possible,” the rights groups said in the statement.
“Civil society is highly critical of this welcome, five years after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Rights advocates and researchers say Saudi Arabia has witnessed an ongoing pattern of systematic repression since 2017, after Mohamed bin Salman became crown prince and de-facto ruler.
Since then, waves of arrests have targeted dozens of academic and religious scholars, preachers, activists, economists, human rights workers, and women’s rights activists. Peaceful activists like Salma al-Shehab are still being sentenced to decades in prison for simple tweets.
The crown prince’s visit to France comes as he has sought to rehabilitate his image in the western world, several years after the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia denies the prince’s involvement, but US intelligence agencies have concluded that Khashoggi’s killing likely occured with Mohammed bin Salman’s knowledge.
The killing had caused massive outrage and a rift in Saudi Arabia’s relationship with western countries like the US, and while rights groups continue to call out Saudi Arabia for the killing as well as a number of other rights abuses, Washington has since sought to repair these ties.
US President Joe Biden had previously called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” but then last year, Biden made a visit to the kingdom where he met with Mohammed bin Salman.
Macron also previously hosted the crown prince last year in Paris, in a meeting rights groups similarly criticised as France reconditioning Mohammed bin Salman’s image on the world stage.
During his last trip to France, MBS stayed at a lavish chateau dubbed “the world’s most expensive home” when he purchased it in 2015.
The Chateau Louis XIV in Louveciennes outside Paris is a new-build mansion intended to mimic the extravagant luxury of the nearby Versailles Palace, once the seat of the French royal family.
The 7,000-square-metre property was bought by an undisclosed buyer in 2015 for 275 million euros ($300 million at the time), leading Fortune magazine to call it “the world’s most expensive home.”
In a twist of history, the Chateau Louis XIV was built by Khashoggi’s cousin Emad Khashoggi who runs a luxury property development business in France.
The chateau features a nightclub, a gold-leafed fountain, a cinema, as well as an underwater glass chamber in the moat that resembles a giant aquarium with white leather sofas.
Bin Salman’s extravagant spending since emerging as the main power broker in Saudi Arabia has repeatedly made headlines.
