There have been several reports that implicate France in the war crimes committed against Yemeni civilians. Aside from logistical and diplomatic support for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, Paris provides the aggressor Arab regimes with vital military weaponry and even engages in direct combat on Yemen’s western coast.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Europe’s grave energy crisis, Paris has now openly concentrated its vicious efforts on pillaging oil and gas from Yemen’s occupied districts.
Recently, the former foreign minister of Yemen, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, revealed that French military personnel had occupied the port of Balhaf, located 370 kilometres east of Aden and south of the energy-rich Shabwa province.
It seems that the French eyes are focused on Sana’a these days. To partially comprehend the indispensable role of Balhaf facilities in providing France with LNG, it is necessary to mention that Paris imported about 3 million tonnes of LNG only in June and May.
According to Western reports, the deployment of French soldiers is intended to secure key infrastructure for the export [read: theft] of Yemeni liquefied natural gas (LNG).
In April 2015, a month after a ruthless onslaught on Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition, the LNG gas facility in Yemen at Balhaf, which had been in operation since 2006, was shut down. Since then, Balhaf has been the principal operational headquarters of the Emirati invaders in Yemen.
Shabwa’s governor, Mohammed Saleh bin Adio, asserted that the UAE occupied Shabwa during Yemen’s ongoing conflict to gain control of the Balhaf facility. For a long time, the region near the Balhaf LNG plant was regarded to be Al-Qaeda’s stronghold, and the UAE has been repeatedly blamed for providing them with weaponry.
An investigation conducted by Amnesty International and CNN in early 2019 found that Western weaponry sold in the UAE ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.
Paris’ position has not altered in the seven years since the invasion of Yemen, owing to the endless efforts and persistent lobbying by the Saudi and Emirati regimes that led France to take a hard line against the legitimate government in Sana’a.
It has been nearly eight years since the Saudi-led coalition initiated ruthless and barbarous aggression against Yemen, the most impoverished Arab nation, committing horrendous crimes against hapless Yemeni civilians.
The UN and human rights organisations have vehemently condemned Saudi Arabia for a wide range of outrageous violations, including the constant bombardment of civilian-populated areas and indiscriminately targeting various cities and rural areas.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia’s naval blockade has decimated Yemen’s already emaciated economy, putting millions of Yemenis on the brink of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in modern history.
Simultaneously, the Élysée, which does not envisage any bright days looming due to the decrease in Russian gas exports, is looking desperately for Yemeni energy facilities that can alleviate some of its needs.
Generally, Paris does not perceive Yemen’s independence as a favourable factor after the September 21, 2014 revolution because of its insatiable oil thirst, which can only be satiated in the shadow of puppet regimes like Ali Abdullah Saleh and his ilk, which is deemed a bygone age.