New Caledonia is an archipelago in the South Pacific not far from Australia. James Cook discovered it in 1774, but, after concluding that too many languages were spoken there, he declined to annex it to the British Empire. France, not as cautious, made it a distant colony under Napoleon III. Today, riots are convulsing the territory. Supposedly ‘decolonial’ in aim, they are most certainly violent and fuelled by the anti-white racism that, from London to Brussels and Paris, has become the trademark of the new radical left. The strangest thing is that among the flags of the Kanak independence movement, one also sees Azeri flags. Why Azeri? Because Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Turkey and is an ally of Russia and Iran, sees an opportunity to make France pay for its support of the Armenians chased out of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022. The dictators vs Emmanuel Macron.
As is always the case when nothing is known for sure, the air is rife with conspiracy theories concerning what happened to the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after his visit to Azerbaijan. As when Fidel Castro denounced the ‘imperialist’ typhoons buffeting Cuba, there are those on social media who attribute the fog over the Dizmar forest, near the city of Varzaghan, to the special services of the United States, Israel, Britain and France. My Iranian friends, meanwhile, are mourning the 223 people executed by the regime since the beginning of the year. They are praying, too, for Ervin Netanel ben Tsiona, a 20-year-old Iranian Jew, who is currently sitting on death row.
I recently received a new letter of appeal from Mikheil Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013.
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