No , but that war was an incredibly dirty business and there were atrocities committed by both sides.
It was the first time a French President had made such an apology though , and his appeal for forgiveness , made it implicit that he acknowledged the grave wrongdoings that his country was guilty of.
Itâs rather odd to see the supposedly âbusiness firstâ Liberal Democrat finance minister publicly signalling Germany to be open to excluding Russia from SWIFT, while the Green Foreign minister is arguing against it.
So, ban me then.
You could call him stable and well-adjusted as much as you could call that any other dictator. This is a man who has imprisoned his political opponents and poisoned dissidents. Someone who has already attacked his neighbours twice before. Now he has launched a full-scale assault on flimsy excuses and is openly threatening neutral states. Who is to say whatâs going on inside his head?
Whatâs truly terrifying is that his power and control is total and absolute. In the old days of the USSR, the Secretary General was part of the Politburo, he wasnât afforded the luxury to decide unilaterally. If Putin decides that he wants to employ nuclear weapons, whoâs going to stop him? The trembling, stuttering SVR chief?
This guy used to make a living as a Putin lookalikeâŚ
He needs to stay off the streets me thinks⌠
And so does Nasser Hussain
Nobodyâs seen Dobby for years.
There is nothing wrong with the truth, the problem is they only started recently to tell it as it was.
Btw 14 African states voluntarily use CFA Franc.
⌠There was no genicide in Algeria!!!
So down with lies!!!
He didnât have to apologise for a genocide however no French President has given a full apology (in diplomatic terms) for what went on in Algeria but he took a leap in that direction. Didnât help at all though so one has to ask whatâs the point?
What? I think you are misunderstanding. By âtake him outâ we are of course asking for someone to lay him down with an Aussie shirtfront:
Itâs actually worse than that in my view as he was complicit/ guilty of the manslaughter of Dawn Sturgess, the completely innocent woman who was the only death in the Novichok poisonings in my home town Salisbury in 2018.
The apology iâm referring to was on colonial abuses for the occupation of Algeria. Not on that particular abuses youâve quoted about.
Heâs made an apology to the Harkis in particular and not for any atrocities that were commited by the french colonials.
When in doubt, sit on your hands. Served them well through the years.
Lies!!!
Yes he has apologised for specific abuses. Heâs gone a lot further than any other French President and been highly criticised for doing so but he assumes that!
There was no genocide!!!
âDidnât help at all though so one has to ask whatâs the point?â
It was clearly something he wanted to do and , to me , speaks to his basic sense of decency as a human being
Guys, no offence and Iâm not usually one to complain about threads going off topic but can we stay away from arguments about French colonialism and keep this thread focused on the current war in Ukraine?
There is a history thread already open if you want to talk about other things.
I think you are missing something fairly significant here by treating all NATO leaders as monolithic. If an American leader was making this statements, frankly I think you could discount them almost completely. But Macron does not have much of a track record in this regard, quite the opposite. As recently as 2019, he hosted Putin for discussions. He and his staff were apparently struck by how much Putin has aged, and how dramatically he has changed. I donât think the French are trying to spin propaganda, though others clearly are - they seem to be legitimately concerned about the thinking underpinning this war. Taken with Putinâs most recent speech, it doesnât seem implausible.
In a related vein, Chinaâs abstention at the UNSC is startling. The expectation was they would support Russia. Beijing clearly had no real inkling this was about to happen, despite meeting with Putin less than three weeks ago. Much like Germany apparently did, they must have been completely discounting the American warnings as agitprop.
This is coming from someone who for three days straight has repeated Russian propaganda , made false equivalences and sought to lecture us all about the evil of NATO and the West. India chose not to condemn Russia at the UN yesterday for this war crime and sadly we are probably seeing in this posterâs contributions the prevailing attitude in that country.
The Macron distraction was the last straw for me.
Stop the lies and it will stop the defense.
@Sithbare has posted a lot of very questionable stuff and been completely off topic since this began. Then he steps onto territory I know about so , what do you expect?
There is noway I will tolerate lies without reply!!!