French Foreign Policy in the Black Sea - ELIAS BRAUN

I FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY IN THE BLACK SEA SINCE 1990 The Caucasus Although French policymaking about the countries in the Caucasus is organisationally grouped together in the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (henceforth MEAE, Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Etrangères) in the directorate for continental Europe under the deputy directorate for the 1 I.e., excluding marriages. [...] Furthermore, France pursued a policy of “perfect symmetry” in its export of weaponry to Armenia and Azerbaijan.15 In the aftermath of the second Nagorno Karabakh war in 2020, French neutrality in the conflict was heavily criticised by the report of the French Senate on the war, co-written by a socialist and a cen- ter-right senator. [...] Furthermore, the issue led to a revision of the Constitution designed to ensure a referendum in the case of Turkish accession, and was raised again and again in French public debate in by the UMP to attack parties on its left, notably during the presidential and European elections from 2007 to 2012. [...] Its reaction to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 would follow the same pattern: one of the main priori- ties was to keep this intra-European and not involve the United States in the resolution of the con- flict, which drove the creation of the ‘Minsk Group’ of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. [...] The main partner for this policy in the Black Sea region is Romania, where longstanding defence cooperation has resulted in an agreement for the deployment of a French battalion in Cincu, in the north of the country.47 In the past few years, Greece has become one of Paris’ main partners in this area, due to their shared interests in the eastern Mediterranean.