Emmanuel Macron will chair the Defense Council on Monday and speak at 8 pm.

Emmanuel Macron will speak about the situation in Afghanistan on Monday at 8 p.m., Elysee said on Sunday evening, while President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, effectively leaving power to the Taliban in Kabul.

Elysee said on Sunday that a Defense Council on the situation in Afghanistan would also be held by videoconference this Monday at 12 noon.

“Ensuring the Security of the French”
France is currently “making every effort to ensure the security of the French” is still in Afghanistan, and Emmanuel Macron “follows hourly by a very worrying worsening of the situation”, having already explained to the French presidency. , while the Taliban are at the gate from Kabul.

On Sunday, France announced the deployment of military reinforcements to the United Arab Emirates to facilitate the evacuation of its citizens, whose Elysees have made their security an “absolute priority”. “The Ministry of Armed Forces will deploy military reinforcements and air assets in the UAE in the coming hours, so that the first evacuation to Abu Dhabi can begin,” Qua d’Orsay said, adding that it “has decided” Kabul Airport (.. .) to move the embassy to the site, especially to proceed with the evacuation of all our compatriots who will still be in the country “.

French officials claim they are “in contact with the French who have come forward” and recall that these “duly evacuation operations of our citizens have been going on for weeks”. The French, who were in Afghanistan, were invited to leave the country in April and a special flight was hired by the French authorities on 16 July. Elysee, for its part, underlined that “an immediate and absolute priority in the coming hours was the safety of the French as well as personnel on the spot, the French and the Afghans”.

Protect Afghans Working for the French Army
Paris argues that France is “one of the few countries” that has retained “the ability to protect Afghans working for the French military as well as journalists, human rights activists”. , threatened Afghan artists and personalities in particular “and reiterated its desire to “continue to protect the personalities of Afghan civil society at risk for its commitment”. Everything is being implemented to maintain the ability to issue visas as far as possible.”

According to French officials, 625 Afghans and their families working in French formations in Afghanistan have been received since May. France, which in recent years has resorted to locally recruited citizens to help its workers on the ground, in particular interpreters, has already raised 550 between 2013 and 2015 and 800 in 2018 and 2019. Beach had organized the reception with their families, specifies Elysee. .

Like other European countries, France has since July suspended the expulsion of Afghan migrants who have rejected their asylum applications.

France was militarily present in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014, and at the height of NATO engagement, the country counted about 4,000 soldiers, with 89 dead and 700 wounded.