Emmanuel Macron will speak on Monday at 8 p.m. on the situation in Afghanistan, the Elysee said Sunday night, as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, effectively leaving power to the Taliban who arrived in Kabul.
A Defense Council on the situation in Afghanistan will also be held on Monday at 12 noon via videoconference, the Elysee said on Sunday.
France is currently “doing everything possible to guarantee the safety of the French” still in Afghanistan, and Emmanuel Macron “follows hour by hour the very worrying deterioration of the situation,” the French presidency had already explained, while the Taliban are at gates of Kabul.
On Sunday, France announced the deployment of military reinforcements to the United Arab Emirates to facilitate the evacuation of its nationals, whose Elysee has made their security a “top priority.” “The Ministry of the Armed Forces will deploy military reinforcements and air assets to the United Arab Emirates in the next few hours, so that the first evacuations to Abu Dhabi can begin,” said the Quai d’Orsay, adding that it also “decided to relocate the embassy. at the Kabul airport site (…) to proceed in particular with the evacuation of all our compatriots who would still be in the country ”.
The French authorities claim to be “in contact with the French who have come forward” and recall that these “methodical evacuation operations of our nationals are carried out for weeks.” The French present in Afghanistan had been invited to leave the country in April and the French authorities had chartered a special flight on July 16. The Elysee, for its part, stressed that “the immediate and absolute priority in the next few hours (was) the safety of the French, as well as of the personnel on site, French and Afghan.”
Paris maintains that France is “one of the few countries” that has maintained on the ground “the ability to protect Afghans working for the French army, as well as particularly threatened Afghan journalists, human rights activists, artists and personalities” and reiterated its desire to “continue to protect the personalities of Afghan civil society threatened by their commitment.” “Currently everything is being implemented to maintain, as far as possible, a capacity to issue visas from Kabul airport,” said the Quai d’Orsay.
According to the French authorities, since May 625 Afghans employed in French structures present in Afghanistan and their families have been received. France, which has used locally recruited civilians in recent years to help its staff in the field, in particular interpreters, had already organized the reception of 550 people with their families between 2013 and 2015 and 800 in 2018 and 2019 , specifies the Elysee. .
Like other European countries, France has since July suspended the expulsions of Afghan migrants who have rejected their asylum applications.
France was militarily present in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014 and counted as many as 4,000 soldiers in this country at the height of NATO engagement, charging 89 dead and 700 wounded.