This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
France Responds To US BNP Fine, Will Train Hundreds Of Russian Seamen To Operate French-Made Warship
In the aftermath of the Russian sanctions, which French president Francois Hollande vehemently approved after constantly slamming Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict, and even went so far to threaten the cancellation of a delivery of a powerful French-made amphibious assault warship, the Mistral, to be delivered to Russia something happened: in the latest demonstration of its impotence to punish domestic bankers, the US decided to slap a French bank, BNP Paribas with a $10 billion fine for money laundering.
As a result, France has suddenly found itself battling two populist fronts: on one hand it had to continue its foreign policy track of siding with NATO and the US when it comes to Russian developments; on the other it had to responds to howls of protest from the population bashing the US for having the temerity to punish its flagship bank (recall "France Furious At US $10 Billion BNP "Masterful Slap", "Racketeering" Fine").
Today, it was revealed that in weighing the two evils, it picked what it thought was the lesser one, and as the WSJ reports "a group of 400 Russian sailors are scheduled to arrive on June 22 in the French Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire to undergo months of instruction before some of them pilot the first of two Mistral-class carriers back to Russia in the fall, said one of these people."
As the WSJ explains, the training is a pivotal step that deepens France's commitment to fulfilling the €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with the carriers, which are built to launch amphibious attacks with landing craft, helicopters and tanks.
That this is taking place even as the U.S. and other allies have called on the government of President François Hollande to cancel the contract, "arguing the ships will significantly enhance Russian naval power at a time when the Ukraine crisis has raised tensions with the Kremlin to their highest levels since the Cold War," demonstrates conclusively that money talks and diplomacy walks. It also demonstrates that in the increasingly more fragile western alliance against Russia (recall further that German commercial interests have made it quite clear they will not agree with any further Russian sanctions over fears of lost revenue), Obama's foreign policy partners are dropping like flies when the opportunity cost is lost business with the Kremlin.
Paris insists the training doesn't tie its hands and that it won't make a final decision on the delivery until October. But Mr. Hollande's government also has said France intends to honor the contract, and privately officials give no indication they will renege.
France's ability to reverse course on the delivery, defense analysts say, will be diplomatically and commercially constrained once the Russian Navy arrives on its shores to begin the training and prepare to drive the carrier home.
"Four hundred Russian trainees are rather difficult to keep below the radar," said Nick Witney, a defense analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations. Other observers say that Paris's credibility to deliver on future contracts is also at stake.
As noted, Obama will not be happy and the training of Russian seamen will surely be a topic of hot debate between Obama and Hollande when the two meet in Paris today, on the eve of D-Day commemorations on the beaches of Normandy, where ironically Russia's Putin will not be present, but Ukraine's new "chocolate king" president will be.
It is not just Obama who will be furious with the latest revelation, further impairing his foreign policy credibility: other European nations are sure to voice their anger too, most notably Poland which feels particularly threatened by developments in the Ukraine:
For months, France has faced staunch opposition from the Obama administration and other Western governments including the U.K. to the plan to sell the ships—criticism that has grown in the wake of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's breakaway Crimea region. In an interview published in French daily Le Monde on Monday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned Russia might use the ships to "threaten neighbors."
"We have named Russia as an aggressor in Crimea, and I don't think France would want to be supplying useful arms to an aggressor," Mr. Sikorski said.
However, as stated earlier money, Russian money, talks:
The tug of war over the Mistral illustrates how Europe's reliance on Russian resources risks unraveling strategic alliances that helped the West win the Cold War. The European Union is deeply divided over how far the bloc should go in imposing sanctions on Russia over its Ukraine incursion. Russian natural gas powers homes and businesses across Germany, the EU's biggest economy, while Russian oligarchs store their fortunes in U.K. banks.
France's economy—hobbled by decades of de-industrialization and rising labor costs—is hungry for large defense contracts that could help get the country's beleaguered shipyards back on their feet. Saint Nazaire, a port which boasts a proud history of building France's biggest ships, now relies on the occasional cruise-ship contract for economic survival.
The government says about a thousand jobs are at stake, in a country with more than 10% unemployment and a stalled economy.
Calling off the Mistral contract, a French official said, would be akin to "shooting yourself in the foot," forcing Paris to take the costly step of reimbursing Moscow.
France has already completed the first ship and built half of the second Mistral, which is scheduled for delivery in 2015. The second ship is named The Sevastopol after the Crimean port that serves as a headquarters for Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
Incidentally, the Mistral will fill a key missing void in Russia's Black Sea fleet: the ability to launch amphibious assaults on bordering nations, such as Georgia.
The Mistral, which looms over the town, is a potent weapon. The length of more than two football fields, the ship is designed to edge up to a shoreline and deploy more than a dozen tanks and attack helicopters as well as hundreds of troops. This type of ship is also an integral part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's defenses, using sensitive communications technology to coordinate operations with other NATO ships. The potential transfer of that technology to Russia has long worried policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The ship also plugs a crucial gap in Russia's armed forces. Moscow boasts one of the world's largest armies and a formidable air force. But Russia's Black Sea fleet lacks an amphibious vessel like the Mistral, capable of launching a land invasion. That weakness deprived Moscow of a crucial knockout punch in 2008, when Russian troops invaded Georgia but never managed to dominate the former Soviet countries shoreline, forcing a stalemate.
"A ship like that would have allowed the Black Sea Fleet to accomplish its mission in 40 minutes," Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Vysotkiy said at the time.
Ironically, it was none other than former French president Sarkozy, who had brokered the truce between Russia and Georgia in 2008, who proposed building the ship which would have made Russia's annexation of Georgia a walk in the park.
The proposal to sell France's prized warship to Russia grew out of the Georgian conflict. In October 2008, France's president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy met with his counterpart President Dmitry Medvedev in the Alpine town of Evian in a bid to shore up a fragile truce Mr. Sarkozy had brokered between Russia and Georgia weeks earlier. By offering to sell Russia the Mistrals, Mr. Sarkozy aimed to persuade the Russians that NATO was no longer an enemy.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili flew to Paris to protest the sale, but Mr. Sarkozy brushed aside his complaints during a tense meeting in the Élysée Palace, according to a French official. "Look Mikheil, Russia is not going to invade Georgia with this boat," Mr. Sarkozy said, according to the official. Mr. Sarkozy then quipped that it was no use worrying about a Russian invasion, because the Russians were "already in your territory."
Years later, the sale has come back to haunt France's government.
And now it is set to haunt the US as well: "Last month, Assistant Secretary for Europe Victoria Nuland told U.S. lawmakers: "We have regularly and consistently expressed our concerns about this sale."
Things are only set to get worse for the State Department once photos of hundreds of "sanctioned" Russian troops being trained by the French hit the front pages of newspapers around the world, in clear defiance of US policy:
French officials haven been poring over the technical details of the training session and deliberating how to temporarily house the Russian troops while they are in French territory without attracting too much attention, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Russia and France had planned to lodge the troops in a Russian vessel docked in Saint-Nazaire, but the person said French officials are reviewing more discreet options.
Meanwhile it is none other than Putin who continues to have the last laugh, again, and again.
»
- 35235 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
You mean fuck the USA crooks in DC and the US oligarchs
Most Americans and their Constitution are good people.
Just a reference to that neocon bitch they send to fuck up the Ukraine.
Absolutely nothing against Americans. Love the country, lived and travelled there, met so many decent, hospitable and helpful people.
Many of them grossly disinformed though...
Almost half of Americans reject the Constitution and the founders and now follow morons into the abyss unfortunately.
The U.S. government has been hijacked right under our noses.
this happened long before any of us were alive. Time for people to relearn.
"Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul" - Walter White
Which Walter White is this? From Breaking Bad or the NACCP activist? Or another Walter White - could be a great uncle of mine.
I'm guessing your great uncle! The quote is actually from Walt Whitman. Here is the full quote:
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
? Walt Whitman
That happened in 1913 with the intro of the Federal Reserve and the income tax. Welcome the progressive era.
Imagine what the world could accomplish with these kind of efforts and money used on something else besides killing each other? Of course human nature will never allow that.
Imagine the infrastructure we would have in this country with all that military spending out of the picture. Also we could have universal healthcare without the insurance company middlemen. Put the Docs in Hondas instead of BMW and Mercedes and get rid of the health administrator beauracracy and the insurance middle man leech infrastructure.
Health care in the US is as big a racket as banking - perhaps bigger.
It's all a part of the same racket, really. The racket is debt/credit money. Banking greases the skids. Credit must be in a state of constant expansion. Anything that can aid in that expansion is exploited (housing, higher education, bloated gov't, finance led M&A, car loans, etc). It's all quite simple, really. Follow the debt.
Like the prison system and all the other systems that are part of the biggest Mafia SYSTEM on the planet!
I like the 1st part of your post.
But I don't like big government.
When you say 'universal' what you mean is 'government'.
Communism has been tried before, you know?
Just saying the Canadians, Australians and UK and Germany etc get a whole lot more bang for the buck with their universal health care system, sure not perfect either but much more cost effective and covers everyone.
Canadians and Britishdefinitely do not unless you believe waiting months for important procedures is somehow quality health care. If you want government to run health care then I suggest you look at schools and the War on Drugs/Poverty etc.
Go to a real free market and eliminate the insurance middle man but keep the gubmint OUT.
When you say universal you lost me. Government has no business in being in control of 20% of the US economy. In doing so there is no doubt that premiums will have to go up significantly or else the health conglomerates will gladly take their bailout to avoid insolvency and systematic failure.
It is only in a disfunctional economy the healthcare would account for 20% of GDP! Food for thought.
Technology has been confiscated and hiden in the name of national security.
Over half the scientists are working to develop new weapons of mass destruction.
The brightest students are under government surveillance.
Millions are written off the ledger as disposable human resources.
This does not end well for the human species.
"Imagine what the world could accomplish with these kinds of effort and money used on something else besides killing each other?"
"Your merchants were the world's important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray." - Revelation 18:23
But what about the European politicians and banks that were co-conspirators with Saddam in looting the oil wealth of Iraq? What about the looting of everything that wasn't nailed down during the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union? What about the decades of theft of US and European foreign aid that was supposed to go to the people of ME, Africa, S. America?
And btw how are the people of southern Europe supposed to get by without tax evasion and money laundering? Oh yes now I remember, if the brilliant government managers just had control of more resources and everyone followed their wise rules, living standards would skyrocket.
Something could be said about France's affinity For national prostitution...
But really, are they supposed to eat a multi-billion Euro shit sandwich for the good of the cause?
Pfff prostitution is welcomed now for the nice pump, so to speak, to GDP
Who would send their kids to fight in a conflict that makes these elite even wealthier?
They sure woiuldn't send their kids in the armed services. It's become a tool for the ultra-wealthy.
I hear French War Ships are faster in Reverse than they are going Forward!!!
What is with all this French bashing:
The French helped the US in the War of Independence
Why is Lafayette, the famous French General who fought in that war honored by 15 US states by having towns and cities named for him.
Why did General Pershing say when he first set foot on French soil in World War 1, "Lafayette we have returned,"
Dont you know OR, nobody is allowed to think for themselves or act in their own interests, they must do as we tell them. If not we bully and make fun of them.
Just a litle help in fact ;-)
At the decisive battle of Yorktown, Lafayette was on the side of the insurgents, and more than half of the fighting troops were French - led by the Comte de Rochambeau.
By the way, have the French ever been invited to the celebrations (like the American are invited in France every year for the remembering of D-Day June 6, 1944 ) ?
Where is the memorial in Washington of the 5,000 sailors of the French Navy who died for US Independence at the battle of the Chesapeake ?
First things the Russians need to learn is about a salvage operation to fish the propellor off of the ocean floor.
Is anyone else surprised that Russia doesn't manufacture their own naval ships? It surprises me that the French can even make a reliable warship - how many hours do they work a day?
Good one.
I heard the French vessels only go in REVERSE. :-D
Doesn't this violate the NATO treaty some way??
In all Fairness the French have some pretty talented engineers, they also have a decent navy and a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. They make some nice fighter jets and missiles to boot and are a nuclear weapon military and civilian power.
This is a particular type of ship. The Russians can make some fine ships also but perhaps the French did a nice design and execution with this class of ship. The Russians get a nice ship for a good price and in the future have a base from which to improve on.
Meanwhile Russian terrorists hiding behind Ukrainian children.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/25g6uip.jpg
Hey, I know those guys: Aaron and Noah from Blackwater.
Ukrainian children are killing CIA and Mossad agents in the East.
Soon to move West if you don't leave their country alone.
Ha ha Seamen.
I knew that was cumming.
Alternate title: "More Russian penetration, French welcome Russian seamen into their port".
It would be fun to see the ship take off and immediately turn around to attack a French port. Would pay good money to see this! Or to cut into the sea and attack New York, also an option.
What a monkey show. At one moment the French condemn Putin at the next they sell him weapon systems. Worlds leaders have gone batshit crazy. Everything is possible now.
The French are only being The French.
My 0.2c :
When the sale contract for the ships was agreed upon in 08, TPTB thought they had Russia onboard for their NWO plans. After that, Putin gave the 1 finger salute to those shadow-wananbe-rulers. Now it is time for France to make good on the agreement (and Russia switched teams) and the US is not liking. Think the 10b$ BNP Paribas fine is coincidence ? Think again.
I say it's about time someone grew some balls and started flinging back some of the shit that Uncle Sam has been dumping over Europe for the better part of a century.
Putin's plan is not only the destruction of the dollar in alliance with China, he knows that most of the world is ready to flip loyalties as the ship sinks. The dominos are falling increasingly faster.
http://youtu.be/yrwTDfdck7I
The US is determined to go down fighting and bring down as many as she can with her!
A "stalemate"? In that 5 day war Russia destroyed all of Georgia's military capability, including it's puny navy, and left. WSJ is either delirious or just a bunch of history revisionists. Likely both.
Another attempt to rewrite history in a way that they hope will avoid notice but sink into our subconscious. If it works, we all will think Russia was beaten back by the brave Georgians and failed in its attempt to annex all of Georgia. WSJ is good at that.
I'm starting to ponder the inconceivable..
The EU aligning with Russia to create a new petro-euro currency in order to control the commanding heights of Eurasia...
The EU is ran by frustrated imperialists who dream of reviving past glories....
Well, then the US will just have to "Fuck the EU" for real.
And it makes so much sense geographically, too!
"The EU is ran by frustrated imperialists who dream of reviving past glories...."
what bollocks. at least you could write european countries instead of EU, which hasn't even a military
You're kidding right? You don't actually believe military occupation solely defines imperialism?
Please students finish your pastry and return to class. Now comrades, let's begin. Lesson 1, chapter 1, page 1 - the big red button on the helm deploys the surrender flag.
what it carries drawing above tanks,helicopters etc.
no mention of key items.
nato override navigation systems
and the ball kicker
mini nuke developed in dimona you nose the place where vanuunu worked the technology used on 911.
hollande of france is israel strong he kills der african cos he rothschild can.
all those key items are Russian. the ships are built without electronics and weapons, and it's Russian gear that has been built in
Of course.
And the addition of a radio-controlledcircuit breaker?
Mais, C'est impossible!
France is awesome. The only problem with France is the french.
It would indeed be ironic if the Frogs, who are commonly derided as being wusses, are first western Europeans to grow a pair big enough to tell the American bully to go f%ck itself. If they do, the girly-man Krauts and the Limeys should take note and man-up lest they lose any semblence of being anything other than just a couple of ball-less American azzzz kissers.
Nato to be?, Nato not to be?, nato to be?, nato........
What better news could a country get other than to hear that the French are building your enemies warships? Everything the French build is a piece of shit.
To be somewhat fair, those ships are not defensive but are designed to conduct extra-territorial aggression, justified or not. Plus after the the launchers are installed, there is plenty room below for beaucoup de grande missiles. Leave it to the egalatrian French to make sure everybody has them.
China is another likely prospect, what with everybody trying to steal their islands and stuff.
Haiti could have used one of these after the earthquake, when rescue planes could not land at the airport and docks were useless. This weapon could also be used for emergency rescue. I think more countries should have them.
But cut the weapons out of it ! :-)
They also carry large quantities of rich buttery sauces.
looks like the US axis of evil is becoming more isolated, whilst the Kremlin is becoming the darling of the new global system.
All you need to do now is get the fascist/nazi's out of France.
Good luck with that.
If there's a non-Nazi country on earth, I don't know which one it would be. Even China is Nazi to some degree these days.
Fascism gives the government control over the means of production while still letting people think they own the means.
In reality it always ends up being Oligarchs who own everything.
If you think your country's government is not Nazi, ask a few simple questions:
- Are privately owned businesses allowed?
- Does your government claim advocacy limited by a national identity or ethnic group rather than for class of people (i.e. "The proletariat")?
- Does the government control some portion of when, where, how, and using what procedures businesses can operate beyond simply prosecuting theft, fraud, murder, etc?
- Does the government establish procdures for entry into professions, either directly or through a quasi-private 'Association' whose policies are nevertheless authoritative as law?
If the answers to those questions are "Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes" then you are living under a Nazi government.
If the answers to those questions are "No, No, Yes, and Yes" then you are living under a Communist government.
If the answer to either questions 1 or 2 were "No" and 3 & 4 were "Yes" then your government is Socialist or Communist.
If the answer to those questions are all "No" then you live under a Liberal or Capitalist government. I haven't been able to identify one of those for decades...
People everywhere would be better off if they armed themselves rather than armed their governments.
France,"I'll show me!"
the french tried keeping an israeli naval boat they sold to israel . isreal paid for it, and then the french government tried to prevent delivery.
end game---isreali special services stole the boat from france and piloted it back.
french navy sucks. nato doesn't care if the russians get a stupid french boat. the job of the french military industrial complex is to do nothing and just not cause problems.
sit back and do nothing. can they manage it? i'm not sure. can the french legionaires conquer anything? i dont' think so.
The Russians need to be trained by the French? This is in case Russia losses and need to know how to give up?
This stuff always reminds me of ...
"Wanna buy a used French rifle? Never been fired and only dropped once!"
Russia is a country of degenerates. They can't comprehend fairness, justice or compassion; can not govern themselves, can not get along with other countries. They can't even get along with themselves. Russia does nothing for the less fortunate of the world; their oligarchs confiscate every asset available and use them to feed their greed for opulent mansions and drug parties. Also, Russia would have been crushed by the Germans during WWII if not for the United States. The world is a better place with Russia as a third-world nation. Let the French build them second class junk ships. They'll make great targets.
Delusional...
Pfff, why they not sell champagne, escargots, wine, Vuitton handbags and make-up instead of arms ?