Pecresse travelled to Karabakh on Wednesday from Armenia where she met with the country’s political and spiritual leaders during a trip which observers believe is connected with France’s forthcoming presidential elections.
The conservative candidate, who heads the Ile de France region of greater Paris, visited the Center for Francophonie in Stepanakert and met there with Ara Harutiunian and Davit Babayan, Karabakh’s president and foreign minister respectively. The Karabakh government issued no official statements on the meeting.
Pecresse was accompanied by French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and Bruno Retailleau, who leads the conservative Les Republicains party’s group in the French Senate.
“Why does France not provide humanitarian aid on the ground for the return of refugees like other members of the [OSCE] Minsk Group do?” Retailleau asked in a tweet on their trip to Karabakh.
The French charge d’affaires in Baku was on Thursday summoned to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry and handed a protest note. The ministry condemned the trip in a statement, saying that it was part of the French presidential race and “directed at Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“In Armenia, a brotherly country for France, I come to plead for the return of peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and the strengthening of French support in the economic and cultural areas and protection of religious heritage,” Pecresse tweeted before flying back to Paris on Thursday.
Speaking to journalists in Yerevan on Tuesday, she reportedly described last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani over Karabakh as an “important warning to Europe.”
“We would be wrong to think that what happened here does not threaten us because the history of Europe is full of examples of threats emerging at times when they were underestimated,” she said.
France is home to an influential Armenian community. It was instrumental in the December 2020 passage by both houses of the French parliament of resolutions calling on President Emmanuel Macron’s government to recognize Karabakh as an independent republic.
Macron, Pecresse and other candidates are expected to vie for French-Armenian votes during the tight race. One of those hopefuls, controversial far-right figure Eric Zemmour, visited Armenia last week.
French commentators say that with their pro-Armenian gestures Pecresse and Zemmour are also reaching out to France’s non-Armenian conservative electorate attached to traditional Christian values.
Pecresse stressed in Yerevan the importance of “protecting Christians” not only in Armenia but also France and other European countries. They are facing common “dangers,” she said.
A French opinion poll released over the weekend showed Pecresse as the likely challenger to Macron in the second round of the presidential elections slated for April 2022.