The only thing that is of any interest when you say the word Qatar is the fact that the French have just struck a $7 billion deal for the sale of 24 Dassault Rafale fighter jets. Whatever it is that President François Hollande of France is doing he’s doing it right. Well, if we are honest according to common opinion amongst his own ilk he’s not doing a lot else right these days. Their unemployment is still rising as we speak. In fact it even hit 10.4% in the last quarter of 2014, reaching the highest levels for 16 years (records only going back to 1998). The number of people that are underemployed stands at 6.5%. The French do not favor President Hollande [11] well at the moment. But, he must be doing something right. Only in April was it that Dassault sealed a contract selling 36 Rafale jets to India and in February there was another one for Egypt with an extra 24 being notched up.
What is it exactly that President Hollande of France is doing in bed with Egypt, India and now Qatar? Those French have a way with it.
· President François Hollande and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani signed the agreement on Monday 4th May 2015 while the French President was on an official visit to Qatar.
· After signing the deal he flew off to Saudi Arabia, where he was the guest of honor at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held in Riyadh on Tuesday 5th May.
· Rumor has it that Kuwait and Oman as well as Malaysia are also in talks to buy the French fighter jet.
Economic Ties
France and Qatar have strong economic ties and have done for a number of years now. Are the Arab Gulf [12] allies worried that Iran will become emboldened by the lifting of sanctions in the country? Are they worried that Iran will get a bigger share of the pie or that the world will now storm into Iran and try to sell it everything that they have left, right and center? President Obama said in April 2015 that he would be willing to lift sanctions over time on the Iranians and that he wanted ‘creative negotiations’ with the country. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani [13] both stated that no deal on nuclear weapons could see the light of day just as long as the US continued to impose sanctions on Iran. Sanctions have been in place since the group of radicals took hostages inside the American embassy in Tehran, while the Shah of Iran had been allowed to enter the US for medical treatment. Is the prospect of sanctions relief in Iran the cause in part of the sudden favors bestowed upon the French fighter jet in Qatar [14]? Saudi Arabia is at the head of a coalition of states in the Gulf that are carrying out air strikes in Yemen against the Houthis, who are backed by Iranians. The Houthis kidnapped a French woman there in February this year. France Qatar and Saudi Arabia are also joining forces in air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), carrying out sir strikes together in both Iraq and Syria. The French government made a statement this week saying that they had to find an alternative to Bachar Al Assad.
What’s of Interest?
The only thing of interest is Qatar’s money and the deal that they have struck with France worth billions. What is of no interest to anybody is the fact that over 500 migrant workers have died since work began in preparation for the World Cup in 2022. What is of no interest is that there are 258,000 migrant laborers and only 25% of them are housed, or rather are going to be housed once the country has finished building seven new cities for them to live in. Labor City or Barwa Al Baraha was built in 2014 to house 22,000 laborers, costing $825 million, with 55 buildings (including malls, clinics and mosques). How much the seven new cities will cost is currently unknown, however. The Labor and Social Affairs Minister of Qatar Dr Abdullah bin Saleh al-Khulaifi called the new cities the ‘blueprint’ for a new future in Qatar, adding that the country has “labor accommodation standards and we are monitoring them and penalizing those who are violating” the rules and regulations. He went on to add “our business community knows we are taking it very seriously”. Are they? Things are not so certain when they are being overshadowed by the sale of billions-worth of Rafale fighter jets. Anyhow, what’s more important fighter jets and the deal or the migrant workers?
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