Nechirvan Barzani in the Elysee Palace: The particularity of the French-Kurdish relations
Barzani's visit to the French capital can only be envisaged within the frame of Macron's interest in Kurdistan that was immediately salient since his early days in the Elysee four years ago. The two men last convened in September, when the French president unexpectedly embarked in Iraq and requested a meeting with Nechirvan Barzani in Baghdad.
That visit was heavily loaded with implications, especially as it came as a part of a short tour in which the French President swiftly leaped between Beirut, in the Aftermath of the blast that wiped the Lebanese capital, and Baghdad, where he met with Mustafa Al-Kadhimi who took the helm only a few weeks earlier.
Macron hoped he could build upon the momentum of the political reality to push forward the stagnant relations between Baghdad and Erbil. That meeting yielded additive value given the strained French-Turkish face-offs.
However, it was not the first meeting between Barzani and Macron. Barzani visited Paris in December 2017 as Kurdistan's Prime Minister, and then again as a president of the Region in September 2019 when he described his French host as a "friend", "I strongly appreciate France's continued support for Kurdistan during tough times. Developing stronger relations with France is my priority."
Therefore, this fourth meeting between Macron and Barzani goes beyond a distinct French policy that has always been applied in the Paris relationship with Iraq and Kurdistan in particular.
The Kurds’ Mother
In the past decades, during French President Francois Mitterrand era (1981-1995), his wife, Daniel Mitterrand, built unique relations with the Kurds and had a crucial role in convincing the French government to support the establishment of a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds in 1990 following UN Security Council Resolution 688. She even visited Halabja, which was swept by Saddam's chemical attack, and laid a wreath at the martyrs’ monument, an expression of her humanitarian positions and left-wing leanings, which she used to influence France's foreign policy.
During the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kurds after the 1991 uprising, she was one of the first international figures to visit the refugee camps to deliver assistance and draw the attention of the international community to their suffering, "I will continue to fight alongside the Kurdish people for their legitimate rights."
It was not too unexpected that many dubbed her "The Kurds Mother" as she was recognized for considering Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani as her sons.
She had a significant role in the establishment of the Kurdish Institute in Paris in 1982. The mother of the Kurds had another remarkable visit to Kurdistan in 1992 to attend the inauguration of the regional parliament.
Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani was the first to develop relations with France and visited Paris in Sarkozy's era to endorse a treaty to establish links in several fields. He met former President Francois Hollande three times in Paris, and Hollande visited Erbil twice in 2014 and 2017.
When the French president landed in Kurdistan in September 2014, ISIS was at the gates of Erbil.
France played a leading role in supporting the Peshmerga forces during ISIS's invasion, dispatching weapons, equipment, troops, and experts to aid Kurdish fighters in their battles.
Recently, media reports said that the French government had devoted a lesson in the 11th-grade curriculum about the Kurds.
There is a large Kurdish community in France, with a population of nearly 150,000, rendering it the largest Kurdish community in Europe after the Kurdish community in Germany.
It is evident that Paris is trying to fill the void left by the Donald Trump administration that estranged the Kurdish issues, whether in Iraq or Syria.
