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00:00 This visit by Mohamed Ben Salman comes as he's been on something of a winning streak
00:06 of late.
00:08 He's been courted from all sides.
00:11 Emmanuel Macron could have met with him at another time.
00:15 I mean, after all, he's here for a week, Mohamed Ben Salman.
00:20 Yeah.
00:21 And I think Mohamed Ben Salman is in France mainly to promote the candidacy of his country
00:29 for the Universal Exhibition of 2030 in Saudi Arabia.
00:35 Next week in Paris there will be a world summit to finance the ecological transition.
00:44 So Mohamed Ben Salman wants to enjoy the presence of many leaders from Africa mainly in order
00:50 to get their support.
00:54 The vote for the Universal Exhibition will take place in November, but it's a file that
00:59 MBS, as we call him, is following personally.
01:03 So this is the main reason of his long presence in Paris.
01:07 Of course, he's going to meet Emmanuel Macron tomorrow.
01:11 They met already last year around in July in Paris.
01:17 There are different topics on the agenda, Ukraine, Lebanon, etc.
01:22 But it's a kind of public relation operation for Mohamed Ben Salman, you know, was a pariah
01:30 five years ago after the horrible Jamal Khashoggi assassination.
01:36 But as you said, he's an international actor now.
01:41 Nobody can avoid him.
01:44 Joe Biden met him recently in Jeddah.
01:49 Mohamed Ben Salman is intervening between Ukraine and Russia to get released some prisoners.
01:58 He makes a rapprochement with Iran recently.
02:02 So whether you like it or not, you can't avoid meeting Mohamed Ben Salman now.
02:10 Can't avoid meeting him now.
02:12 A couple of the points that you mentioned there, first of all, 2030, the Universal Expo,
02:16 as you mentioned, also Saudi Arabia wants to co-host the World Cup that year.
02:21 So there's a lot of lobbying to be done.
02:23 Exactly.
02:24 And this year, 2030, is a very important year for Saudi Arabia and especially for Mohamed
02:30 Ben Salman, because, as you know, he launched his vision, his plan of reform, economical
02:37 society, etc., with a term in 2030.
02:42 So if he gets a universal exhibition in 2030, it will be a big victory for Saudi Arabia.
02:48 His vision 2030 is really his main goal internally.
02:54 You know, he gave there is a true revolution in Saudi Arabia.
02:59 I went there two months ago to work.
03:02 It's not so easy to get there as a journalist.
03:04 You know, when you see now girls driving, but not only driving, you know, having fun
03:11 without their abaya, working, they can get divorced now.
03:16 They can work.
03:17 They can get outside the country.
03:19 So there is a real social revolution.
03:23 There is also many investment in this vision 2030.
03:30 So he is changing the face of Saudi Arabia.
03:36 Of course, this is the I would say the good face of Mohamed Ben Salman.
03:41 There is another face, less attractive.
03:45 He's an autocrat.
03:46 He's a Saudi justice.
03:48 He's sending in jail, you know, bloggers or young girls who wrote very insignificant tweets.
03:57 So but he is has he managed to rebrand himself?
04:04 You mentioned that since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
04:06 I mean, we saw Anthony Blink in the US State there for three days.
04:11 We saw that he is was the kingmaker when it came to that OPEC plus meeting.
04:15 Exactly.
04:16 He is now, of course, there was Khashoggi, but now Macron went there once.
04:21 Johnson went there.
04:22 Biden went there.
04:23 MBS came to Paris last year.
04:25 He is an actor in the Ukraine-Russian war.
04:29 He's an actor now in the Middle East with his rapprochement with Iran.
04:34 He's an actor with Israel.
04:37 And you know, the real politic has taken the lead now.
04:43 So MBS can't be avoided.
04:45 Can't be avoided, but he can be criticized.
04:48 Let's listen to the head of Amnesty International in this country.
04:55 You can see now that he's on a diplomatic offensive.
04:58 And finally, the states are starting to forget a little about what happened in that embassy
05:02 in Turkey and are rolling out the red carpet for this murderer.
05:05 There's no other word for it.
05:07 There's the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but there's also a human rights situation that's
05:10 being violated on a massive scale in Saudi Arabia.
05:13 And that's why we are deeply shocked by this visit.
05:18 Readers of Le Figaro, what do they make of this visit?
05:23 Are they wondering what Macron is going to get out of it?
05:25 Are they outraged by the human rights aspect?
05:28 No, I think not anymore, I guess, because there is this aspect of the reality which
05:39 can be denied that Saudi Arabia is a very important country, not only in the oil market,
05:47 but also diplomatically now.
05:49 We used to have Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally with the United States.
05:55 Now under Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia, as I'm used to say, has multiple wives.
06:04 They still have the U.S. wife, but not only.
06:08 They have the Chinese wife now because China is their first client in the first country
06:13 where they sell their oil.
06:15 They have Russian wife, they have European wife, but not anymore like it used to be.
06:21 You say Russian wife, and it's true that Russia is a member of OPEC Plus and they agree they're
06:26 going to curtail a bit more production.
06:31 The Russians weren't always agreeing on that at that meeting in Vienna recently.
06:36 However, what do you make then of the fact that here you had this Arab League summit
06:42 hosted by Mohammed bin Salman and who shows up?
06:46 Volodymyr Zelensky.
06:47 Yeah, yeah, because he wanted to balance, I guess, this image.
06:53 He was criticized, not only him, but most of the country in the Gulf by not having criticized
06:59 Russia, etc.
07:00 So he wanted to balance his image.
07:03 That Mohammed bin Salman is not aligned with the U.S. or with Europe, not anymore.
07:13 And he wants to have a march of maneuver in the Middle East.
07:19 And I will not be surprised if in a few months or years he will try to make peace with Israel,
07:30 but not a peace, bilateral peace, but probably to have a new version of the King Abdullah
07:41 peace plan of 2002, 22,000.
07:45 You mentioned that thaw in relations with Iran.
07:49 The two big proxies, Saudi Arabia and Iran, when it comes to politics in Lebanon, which
07:55 once again are broken these days.
07:58 Right now they're trying to elect a president.
08:00 It's not working.
08:01 No.
08:02 France and Saudi Arabia, how aligned are they right now on this?
08:07 You know, Saudi Arabia has been fed up with Lebanon.
08:11 And MBS told, frankly, to Emmanuel Macron last year in Abu Dhabi, we are fed up with
08:17 Lebanon.
08:18 We supported in the past the Sunni prime minister, Rafi Qariri, his son, Saad Qariri, but we
08:24 invested a lot of money there.
08:26 And we never, we, they criticize the Sunni to be necessary.
08:34 Are you saying Macron cares more about Lebanon these days than Saudi Arabia?
08:38 Of course, because Lebanon is our only country where we still have a piece of influence in
08:42 the Middle East.
08:43 But for Saudi Arabia, Lebanon is not anymore an important country.
08:47 Mohammed bin Salman, I guess, never went to Lebanon.
08:51 The previous Saudi leaders used to go for vacation to Beirut.
08:56 It's over this time.
08:58 Now they prefer to go to Ankara or to Europe.
09:01 So but Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia is still important for the, in Lebanon because they
09:09 are the supporters of the Sunni.
09:11 We are the supporter of the Christians and we have Iran, supporter of the Shia.
09:15 So to have a new elected president, we'll have to have an agreement between these three
09:21 maximum minimum plus the United States countries.
09:26 So of course, Lebanon will be at the menu of the lunch tomorrow between Mohammed bin
09:35 Salman and Emmanuel Macron.
09:37 But there is a fatigue in Saudi Arabia concerning Lebanon.
09:42 It won't be a top of the menu.
09:45 Many thanks Georges Malbrunot for joining us here on France 24.