Amazigh.nl

Een 9-jarige leerling is vandaag verdronken in een waterbassin in de gemeente Tamassint, het jongetje dat niet kon zwemmen probeerde te ontsnappen aan de hitte door in het water te duiken maar schatte de hoogte van het waterniveau verkeerd in.


Het waterbassin werd tijdelijk aangelegd door een bouwbedrijf die werkzaamheden verricht aan een lokale weg.


Het lichaam werd later opgeborgen en gebracht naar het ziekenhuis van Alhoceima, na het vaststellen van de doodsoorzaak door verdrinking werd het lichaam overhandigt aan zijn familie in Tamassint waar hij werd begraven.

bron: http://nieuws.aitwayagher.nl/9-jarig-jongetje-verdronken-in-tamassint

De marokkaanse autoriteiten heeft de instructie van "de taal Tamazight" op wijze beperkt geïntroduceerd. (lage school 6-11 jaar, enkele model-school). Zij begint eveneens bepaalde pseudo-officieel document in het Tamazight te vertalen.

Maar welk is deze taal Tamazight die men te kennen geeft ? Ik heb hun document geraadpleegd en het oogt dat het niet de taal Tamazight maar de taal Tashelhit is. Het is een belangrijk probleem want als het project van de marokkanen tot het einde gaat, want het Tamazight gesproken door de Riffijnen is ZEER verschillend van het Tashelhit.

Op termijn, het betekent dat kleine Riffijnen een andere vreemde taal (tashelhit) zullen leren bovendien de arabier, van het frans... het zal een rem aan hun scholing voor de cognitieve ontwikkeling zijn, aldus het zal schoolmislukkingen nog belangrijker verwekken.


ziehier een voorbeeld van folders van de makhzen in het Tashelhit : http://www.fm5.ma/sites/default/files/mini%20guide%20FM5_0.pdf

- gedeeltelijke uitschrijven :

amnnir n wammarn n urnubg d innrarn n usunfu


ddu tmmughra tasmdawt n bab wuddur agllid muh'mmad wiss s'd'is',
ad tamu tmssntit muh'mmad wiss smmus i twizi g tmggit marh'aba 2008

ammarn n urnubg g spanya

g usggwas n 2007, sin innrarn imaynuten n usunfu ad ittuskrn

- annrar n usunfu ........... (gr .......... d ..........)

amd'an azgzaw : ................

iwttasn n tmssntit muh'mmad wiss smmus i twizi

ad tssili yat tussna n twiziwin gr ignarn inamunn illan g uguns ngh g br'r'a n lmghrib s tgharast nnad tssamu tinzmar akkw g tiggawt tmayawast. ad tnnal, tmasa i imzdaghn id war ayda ngh wid ur iz'd'ar'n afad ad adfen s tnflit izubdan

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/1.571073?view=popupPlayer

Two soldiers of Turkish security forces were wounded in an armed attack staged by members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey on Tuesday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

The PKK rebels opened fire on a military unit in Uzundere region of Cukurca town of Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, according to the report.

It added that reinforcement was sent to the region where the armed clash between the PKK militants and the Turkish security forces.

Later Sunday night, PKK members attacked on a military vehicle carrying troops to their sentry posts in the naval logistics base with RPG-7 rocket launchers and long-range weapons in Iskenderun town of Hatay province in southern Turkey, killing six Turkish soldiers and wounding seven others.

The past weeks have seen more clashes between the PKK and the military in southeastern Turkey as the weather warmed up.

On May 20, Turkish armed forces killed 19 PKK members including some camp leaders in an air strike against some 50 PKK targets in north Iraq's Hakurk, Zap and Qandil regions, where a large number of PKK militants hide out in the mountains, according to Anatolia.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey and is listed as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, the United States and the European Union.

Some 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts fuelled by the PKK's separatist campaign in Turkey.

Kabyle government-in-exile will challenge Algeria’s leaders against injustice, discrimination.



PARIS - A movement demanding autonomy for Algeria's Kabylia region said Wednesday it had set up a government-in-exile in France to challenge the national leaders in Algiers.

"We are setting up our provisional government so that we no longer undergo the injustice, contempt, domination, frustration and discrimination that we have endured since 1962," said the movement's leader, Ferhat Mehenni.

Activists in Kabylia, a poor, mountainous eastern region whose inhabitants speak a Berber language, have been demanding autonomy that would recognise their distinct culture since the country won independence from France in 1962.

"Our existence denied, our dignity scorned, discriminated against on every level, we have been forbidden our identity, our language, our Kabyle culture," Mehenni said in a statement.

"Stripped of our natural riches, we are currently administered like a colony, like foreigners within Algeria."

Mehenni, 59, president of the Kabylia Autonomy Movement (MAK), said he was the leader of the provisional Kabylia government, at the head of nine ministers.

He said he had been arrested in Algeria for organising unauthorised protests and there was an outstanding court summons for him there.

bron : http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=39343

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJTwUmekWk&feature=player_embedded

Afgelopen zaterdag hield de Amazigh vereniging Massinissa in Tanger een debat over het thema "Autonomie vanuit de Amazigh visie", het debat was succesvol en nadat het was afgelopen keerden de bezoekers naar hun huis.


Maar activisten van de Amazigh CMA werden in centrum van Tanger (Boulevard)  tegengehouden door een verkeersagent die hun identiteitskaarten en de Amazigh vlag die ze bij zich hadden in beslag genomen. De verkeersagent begon de activisten en de vlag te beledigen en te vernederen, al snel voegden andere burgers zich bij de activisten in wat een demonstratie werd. De verkeersagent vroeg om assistentie van politie die snel arriveerden met een arrestatieteam die de Amazigh activisten oppakte en naar het bureau vervoerde waar ze werden ondervraagt.


Maar de leden van vereniging Massinissa en burgers zetten een demonstratie op richting de politiebureau om de vrijlating van de activisten te dwingen wat hun lukte, de CMA activisten werden terug gebracht naar de straat waarin ze werden opgepakt en kregen hun Amazigh vlag terug.

bron : http://nieuws.aitwayagher.nl/imazighen-tanger-opgepakt-voor-het-hebben-van-de-amazigh-vlag

In the operation, searches found large sums of money, forged official documents and weapons used by the members of this band, whose exact number was not specified in the report.

Moroccan security forces have dismantled an international drug network that was dedicated to introducing drugs to Spain through Nador, the Moroccan city next to Melilla, according to Morocco's Ministry of the Interior.

In a statement, the authorities explained that the network was led by a Moroccan resident in the Netherlands and that in Nador, on 2 May, more than 7.5 tons of chira (cannabis resin) was seized.

.The network carried the drug from Nador to the Spanish coast, with the complicity, the statement said, of officials. The investigation remains open under the supervision of the Prosecutor, and members already in custody will be presented shortly before the courts.

http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3f35d97x?display=all#

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32160346/Micro-Dynamics-Between-Rif-and-Europe

deze krant is wekelijks, hij wordt de alle en vrijdag geprogrammeerd. Sinds oktober 2009 bestaat dit programma, maar deze uitzending heeft veel probleem gekend : http://arrif.forumactif.net/arrif-f14/coalicion-por-melilla-ttar-ad-dwer-aneghmis-s-tamazight-xef-tilivision-n-mritc-t19.htm

de archieven van deze nieuws :

21/05/10 : http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=11926769
14/05/10 :  http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=11746187
07/05/10 : http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=11617323
30/04/10 : http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=11423025
16/04/10 : http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=11042909
09/04/10 : http://www.tvmelilla.es/videos/video.html?v=10863801
....

Line-up ArteGanza Festival Wereldmuziek bekend :

Ithran

De Berbernaam van deze legendarische Riffijnse groep uit de jaren ’80, is een lofzang op de sterren. De band is opgericht door Mimoun Rahmouni, zanger en ex-gitarist van de in de jaren-70 populaire muziekgroep Assam, met een formatie van zes bandleden. Vanwege de harde politieke en sociaaleconomische omstandigheden waarin de band zich staande wist te houden, kan dit optreden gezien worden als een reünie van oude kameraden, zowel voor de fans, als voor de artiesten.

Zaterdag 19 juni | 18.00 uur | ArteGanza Mundial Stage


>> http://www.arteganza.nl/festival/programma.html#ithran

Dit Berber-spreekwoord is een van de circa vijftienduizend vrouwenspreekwoorden van over de hele wereld die emeritus hoogleraar Mineke Schipper verzamelde voor haar boek Trouw nooit een vrouw met grote voeten.

Door de eeuwen heen zijn opvattingen over vrouwen vastgelegd in het kleinste literaire genre, het spreekwoord. Mineke Schipper, emeritus hoogleraar Interculturele literatuurwetenschap aan de Universiteit Leiden, verzamelde en beschreef spreekwoorden uit meer dan 240 talen en uit meer dan 150 landen waarin ideeën over vrouwen tot uitdrukking komen. Ze gaan over het lichaam van de vrouw; haar schoonheid; de levensfasen van meisje, bruid, echtgenote, moeder en grootmoeder; de lusten en de lasten van liefde; seks en kinderen krijgen. Ondanks culturele verschillen blijken er frappante overeenkomsten te bestaan in de patronen van dit wereldwijd doorgegeven gedachtegoed. De spreekwoordencollectie geeft een herkenbare, hilarische en soms onthutsende kijk op het denken over vrouwen en hun status in culturen van overal.

>> http://nieuws.leidenuniv.nl/nieuws-agenda/vrouwenspreekwoorden-op-het-web.html

**********************************

http://womeninproverbsworldwide.com/the-proverbs/search/index.php (search language : berber)

http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1274006123140RA96

:-)

WAASLAND - Berlare is de ‘meest Belgische' gemeente in onze regio gebleven, met minder dan twee procent vreemdelingen. Lokeren is dan weer de meest kleurrijke plaats: één inwoner op de vijf heeft buitenlandse roots.

Cijfergegevens van de socioloog Jan Hertogen geven aan dat vooral de Marokkaanse gemeenschap sterk staat in Lokeren. ‘Ze zijn in de jaren zestig naar de Durmestad gehaald als goedkope werkkrachten voor de vellennijverheid, waarvoor de stad bekend was', vertelt Mohammed Achaibi van het Lokerse stadsbestuur.

‘De toenmalige inwijkelingen contacteerden streekgenoten met het nieuws over de werkgelegenheid in België. Je merkt trouwens dat de Lokerse Marokkanen allemaal uit dezelfde regio â€" Temsamane Trougout â€" komen.'

Een gelijkaardig verhaal in Zele, maar dan met Turken in de hoofdrol. ‘Veertig jaar geleden kenden de Zeelse kabelbedrijven een tekort aan werkkrachten. Zij werden in Turkije gevonden', vertelt burgemeester Patrick Poppe (Open VLD).

De Turken zijn gebleven in Zele. ‘De meesten onder hen trouwen met een echtgenote uit hun land van herkomst, halen haar naar hier en stichten een gezin. Zo breidt de Turkse gemeenschap nog steeds uit.'

In aantal telt Sint-Niklaas de meeste inwoners van buitenlandse origine: 9.400 op 70.450burgers. De Marokkanen vormen de grootste groep. Omdat de meesten van hen uit al-Hoceima stammen, wil Sint-Niklaas ‘internationaal samenwerken' met die stad in het noorden van het Afrikaanse land.

Naast Marokkanen en Turken zijn Nederlanders het sterkst vertegenwoordigd in het Waasland. Ongeveer 850 van hen wonen in Sint-Niklaas. In het kleinere Stekene (750 uitgeweken noorderburen op 17.100inwoners) valt hun aanwezigheid echter meer op. ‘We liggen nu eenmaal op een zucht van Nederland', zegt de burgemeester van de grensgemeente, Stany De Rechter (Gemeentebelangen).

‘Je hoort wel eens dat al die Nederlanders omwille van het fiscaal voordeel naar België verhuizen. Dat zal zo wel zijn, maar ik verneem ook dat ze gecharmeerd zijn door Stekene. Je kunt hier aangenaam winkelen en er is altijd wel wat te doen.'

Oranje boven zet natuurlijk de prijzen op de immobiliënmarkt onder druk. ‘Ik denk dat die druk er altijd geweest is. We zijn ideaal gelegen: via de Expresweg zit je op vijftien minuten van Antwerpen.'

bron : http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=UF2Q6U56

The Euro-Mediterranean Assembly of Local and Regional Authorities (ARLEM) seeks tangible action

As the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) nears the end of negotiations on its structure and work programme, local and regional representatives have not let the grass grow under their feet. Over seventy local and regional representatives from thirty countries around the three shores of the Mediterranean met in Barcelona today, Thursday 21 January, for the inaugural meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Assembly of Local and Regional Authorities (ARLEM). They called on EU Commissioner, Pawe? Samecki, and Spanish State Secretary, Ángel Lossada Torres-Quevedo, to ensure an "inclusive process" and to give "priority to tangible action".

"Our belief is that the Union for the Mediterranean must not fall into the trap of Barcelona, restricting itself to traditional diplomatic relations. We therefore offer our commitment at grassroots level, geared to implementing practical projects through the contributions of the regional and local authorities that strive on a daily basis to improve quality of life for our fellow citizens. Our goal is to give the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue one further chance so that the specific projects put forward in Paris a year ago can be achieved", declared Luc Van den Brande , president of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), who was elected co-president of the new assembly at this meeting. "What ARLEM needs is a grassroots structure that can operate independently of the international political context." He added: "ARLEM is being set up today as an autonomous body, but its purpose is to serve the UfM â€" hence our request, once the UfM's internal structure and organisational arrangements are in place, to contribute to its work as an observer, following the Barcelona summit of June 2010."

Mohamed Boudra, mayor of Al Hoceima, who was also elected co-president at this inaugural meeting, took the floor and noted the current "plethora of bilateral initiatives to promote development. But they suffer from lack of coordination." He continued: "We are convinced that, in order to be sustainable, national strategies on both sides of the Mediterranean must be bolstered through local and regional authority involvement in defining and implementing cooperation strategies." He then outlined the work programme that ARLEM members had set themselves: "In 2010, our activities will focus on four areas: urban and territorial development, decentralisation, the information society and support for small and medium-sized enterprises. ARLEM members, with their regions and local authorities, have committed themselves to twinning and decentralised cooperation initiatives in these areas." The work programme is included in the conclusions (adopted by the assembly.

"We have a responsibility today, as regions and local authorities, to send a message of optimism to the second summit of the Union for the Mediterranean, to be held in June 2010 in Barcelona. Fifty years of European integration have shown that the principle of subsidiarity, genuine subsidiarity, which takes regional and local governments into account, is the best way to face up to common challenges. We must not wait another fifty years, not even another ten or even five years, to decide that this is also the best way forward in the Euro-Mediterranean region." concluded José Montilla , president of the Government of Catalonia, as he welcomed this inaugural meeting to Pedralbes Palace, which is also the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean.

In conjunction with this inaugural meeting, ARLEM's two co-presidents will meet the UfM secretariat to examine arrangements for ARLEM's formal recognition as the second pillar of the process, alongside the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

>> http://eulib.com/euro-mediterranean-assembly-local-regional-authorities-arlem-8485

http://www.theparliament.com/policy-focus/regions/regions-article/newsarticle/euro-mediterranean-partnership-starts-work-in-barcelona/

Abdellah Karroum (born 1970, in Ait Ulichek (Rif)) works as an independent art researcher, publisher and curator. He is the founder and artistic director of several art projects: ‘L’appartement 22’ (site), an experimental space for encounters, exhibitions and artists’ residencies founded in 2002 in Rabat, Morocco; the ‘Le Bout Du Monde’ art expeditions undertaken since 2000 (site); and the ‘éditions hors’champs’ art publications that have been published since 1999 (site) ; Radioapartment22 (site). He curated numerous exhibitions for capcMusée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (Pensées bleues (1993) ; Jean-Paul Thibeau (1995) ; Urgences (1996)), and was one of the curators for the 2006 DAK’ART Biennial for African Contemporary Art. Karroum is co-curator for the "Position Papers" program in the Gwangju Bienniale 2008 (invited by the Artistic Director Okwui Enwezor). In 2007, Karroum served as a Member of the Golden Lion Jury in the Biennale of Venice. Karroum is also Member of the Prince Pierre Monaco Foundation’s Artistic Council for its International Prize of Contemporary Art. He initiated the laboratory "Art, Technology and Ecology" at ESAV-Marrakech (Film School). His research is funded in part by the Prince Claus Fund (Amsterdam) and the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA). Karroum is the Curator of the 3rd AiM International Biennale’s exhibition 2009 in Marrakech.

bron : http://appartement22.com/

familia ines :

Vrijdag (23 april) vond de eerste vlucht plaats naar het Noord-Afrikaanse land, waar de bestemmingen Nador en Tanger worden aangevlogen.
In eerste instantie worden beide bestemmingen door middel van een combinatievlucht aangevlogen. Van half juni tot begin september wordt Nador twee maal en Tanger eenmaal per week direct aangevlogen vanaf Schiphol. In de winter worden beide bestemmingen weer gecombineerd.
Na een tussenstop in de noordoostelijke stad Nador werd de Airbus A320 van de maatschappij vrijdag bij aankomst op de luchthaven van Tanger officieel welkom geheten door de luchthavendirectie en de Nederlandse ambassadeur in Marokko, Jos van Aggelen. Om de toestellen te vullen wordt voor zowel Tanger als Nador gemikt op het zogeheten etnische verkeer, terwijl ook op de nodige toeristen wordt gerekend. Vanaf beide bestemmingen zijn de vakantieresorts aan de Middellandse Zee snel bereikbaar.

bron : http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/default.asp?cat=all&id=34665

marokko wordt door een tiran Mohamed el 3alaoui geleid, om het te helpen in diens taak hij heeft diens dienst een bataljon van familie.

deze families zijn aan het einde van 19e verschenen en zij zijn machtig gratie zij hun samenwerking met de Franse kolonisatoren geworden.

http://www.alhiwar.org/fr/pdf/LeDebat/leDEBAT-6.pdf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25358866/Clan-el-Fassi

Hundreds of Black Mauritanian students gathered at the University of Nouakchott Tuesday to express their outrage against what they call a "comprehensive Arabization" of Mauritania. The sit-in follows several demonstrations triggered by speeches, delivered by the Prime Minister and Minister of Culture. The students condemn a move to promote Arabic as a national language.

The atmosphere was tense on Tuesday at the University of Nouakchott. Under heavy police surveillance, Black Mauritanian students gathered, once again, to show their indignation over speeches given by the country’s Prime Minister Mohamed Ould Moulaye Laghdaf and Culture Minister Cissé Mint Boide on March 1, a day set aside for the promotion of the Arabic language.

Strong statements calling for the primacy of the Arabic language in strategic areas including television, education, and administration, while reducing French and other national languages like Fulani, Wolof and Soninke to sheer Vernacular. "Everything is Arabized!", hurled Yacouba Diakite, secretary general of the National Union of Mauritanian Students (SNEM), as he condemned the Arabic language broadcasts on Mauritanian television. He describes the speeches delivered by the two ministers as discriminatory and "disastrous" as they do not take into account the country’s cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity.

This latest protest follows an initial demonstration that took place Wednesday, March 24. Mainly represented by members of the SNEM and bilingual clubs of the University of Nouakchott, the protesters hit the streets with two main requests : An apology from the Prime Minister who, by imposing Arabic as the sole administrative instrument of exchange and work, has given rise to a sense of cultural oppression among Black Mauritanians; And the resignation of the Minister of Youth and Culture, who, according Ndiaye Sarr Kane, spokesman for the demonstration, is incapable of representing Mauritania’s multiculturalism. According to her, part of the minister’s speech which read: "The national languages are obstacles to the emergence of the Arabic language," were shocking.

The demonstration quickly turned violent as Arab students chanting "yes to Arabization!" clashed with the Black Mauritanians. The violence led to the arrest of several students by the police. The number of students arrested range between 4, according to Atlas Vista, and 8, according to RFI. Those arrested were released 24 hours later without being charged.

A multicultural country?

These multiple demonstrations has incurred strong reactions from the prime minister, who remains determined to justify his remarks, in an interview accorded to three journalists from the country’s private media and published on the ruling party’s (l’Union des forces de progress) website.

Interpreting his speech, according to him, requires placing it in its appropriate context. He further explains that the speech was made on the 1st of March, a day commemorated by 22 countries as a day of the Arabic language, following a decision by the Arab League, of which Mauritania has been a member since 1973. He insists that it was not unusual to place the language on a pedestal that day, he however denies denigrating the other national languages, which according to him, remain an integral part of the country. A country he describes as having both strong African and Arab roots.

Analysts believe that this is an essential fight for the Fulani, Wolof, Soninke and other black-skinned groups, who account for about a third of the country’s population, as the Arabic language consolidates the position of the Arab-Berber majority who wield more political and economic power, and who have often been accused of enslaving the minority Black populations. Slavery which is still practiced by the Arab-Berber populations was abolished three times in Mauritania in the last century alone. In 2002, Action for Change (AC), a political party which campaigned for greater rights for blacks and the descendants of slaves, was banned by the government.

Symptomatic of a deep malaise, the question of identity has rocked the Mauritanian landscape since 1966; a year that saw a massive mobilization of Black students in Nouakchott to ask for the suppression of a law that sought to make the use Arabic language in secondary education compulsory. A cultural constraint for the Black minority, natives of the region of the Senegal River Basin, the issue has remained latent for nearly half a century.

>> http://en.afrik.com/article17279.html

The tragedies and convulsions of the past haunt, even poison, French relations with the Arab world. The medieval Crusades were inspired, led and financed by French princes, feudal barons and knights.

The French occupied Algeria for 130 years and abandoned it in 1962 only after a horrific colonial war that cost an estimated one million Arab and Berber lives. French and British paratroops invaded Egypt in concert with Israel, after Gamal Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956. France nurtured exceptionally close ties with Israel in the first two decades of its existence, due to postwar national guilt after Marshal Pétain’s. Vichy collaborationist government deported 80,000 French Jews to the Nazi gas chambers. French-built Mysteres and Mirages of the IDF Force utterly destroyed the Egyptian Air Force in the opening moments of the June 1967 Six Day War and enabled Israel’s seizure of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Paradoxically, despite the horror and sorrow of Algeria, the Suez invasion and the Six Day War, France enjoys unprecedented prestige in the palaces, salons, newsrooms and military barracks of the Arab world.

France’s successful Arab policy began after General de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on Israel. His political heir Jacques Chirac cultivated Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to such a great degree that the French-built Osirak nuclear reactor outside Baghdad, destroyed by the Israelis in a pre-emptive air strike in July 1981, was known in Paris as “O Chirac”. President Chirac did not hesitate to court even rabidly anti-West radical or Islamist regimes, such as Libya, Syria or Khomeini’s Iran in his eagerness to promote French national interests in the Middle East. Chirac’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin became the most famous French diplomat on the world stage since Prince Tallyrand when he defied US plans to invade Iraq in the UN Security Council. Democracy or human rights, so often the rhetoric veneer of American and British diplomacy, played no role in the political calculus of the Elysee Palace. French national interests demand that it secure stable, long term oil supplies, protect defense jobs by selling high-tech warplanes and tanks to Arab regimes and preserve strategic interests in its former Maghreb and 
Levant colonies.

While the Middle East is no longer a central theatre of French-US rivalries, as it was under Chirac, Sarkozy has not hesitated to take advantage to the failure of the Obama administration to engage Iran by launching his own diplomacy in the Middle East. His Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has cut multi-billion dollar arms, oil and nuclear deals with almost every Arab state. The Amir of Qatar, the first foreign head of state to visit France after Sarkozy’s election, purchased a dozen Airbus 350 planes for $16 billion. Sarkozy secured the release of the Bulgarian nurses held in Tripoli and hosted Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in the Elysee Palace. The French presence in Abu Dhabi includes a branch of the Sorbonne, the Louvre museum a Total joint venture and a military base.

I doubt if France can replace the United States as the dominant superpower in the Middle East. The Shia political elite in Baghdad resents France’s past, intimate relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Baathist regime. Morocco negotiated its first free trade agreement with the United States, not France. Despite Renault’s car plants and Total’s gasfields, the French were unable to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear programme. Hezbollah, not France’s traditional Christian Maronite allies, now determines the politics of Lebanon. The Italian ENI, not Total, dominates the LNG and crude oil infrastructure of Egypt and Libya.

Sarkozy has played a critical role in Syria’s rapprochement with Lebanon’s Maronites and Saudi Arabia. He sought to broker a direct peace deal between the Israelis and President Assad. With the Americans unable to make even glacial progress on a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, the Elysee Palace has used the diplomatic vacuum to act as a secret channel between Damascus and Jerusalem, alongside the Turkish government. The French connection is reborn in Damascus.