“Iraq has had a very important and dynamic role in the region and the Baghdad Conference was a very important step in that direction,” Christophe Lemoine, spokesperson for France’s foreign ministry, told Rudaw’s Shahyan Tahseen in an interview.
He was referring to the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership, first held in 2021 with support from Paris and attended by regional heads of state. In March, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani received a call from French President Emmanuel Macron, where the two leaders discussed the possibility of holding the third edition of the conference.
In January 2023, Sudani and Macron signed several strategic agreements in Paris aimed at boosting cooperation across various sectors.
“We are keen on diversifying the presence of French business in Iraq,” Lemoine said.
Bargasht Akreyi, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region’s Board of Investment, told Rudaw on Monday that around 60 French companies are expected to visit and invest in the Kurdistan Region in the coming days. The initiative aims to strengthen bilateral ties between Erbil and Paris, create thousands of job opportunities, and pave the way for French brands to expand into the Region.
French, Iraqi, and Kurdish officials and business leaders met in Paris in May at a major trade and investment forum, where Baghdad and Erbil presented Iraq as a stable, investment-friendly destination. Baghdad and Erbil are actively working to diversify their economy by bolstering the private sector.
As of May 2024, French investments in the Kurdistan Region totaled around $3 billion across multiple sectors, according to France’s Consul General in Erbil Yann Braem.
“We are very keen on strengthening the ties between Iraqi Kurdistan and France,” Lemoine emphasized.
France has long-standing ties with the Kurdish people, dating back to the 1980s when then-First Lady Danielle Mitterrand became an outspoken advocate for Kurds oppressed under Saddam Hussein. She played a key role in establishing the no-fly zone over the Kurdistan Region after the 1991 Gulf War, which enabled the Kurds to establish an autonomous administration. Mitterrand remains affectionately known as the “Mother of the Kurds” and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992.
Following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in Erbil. It also supported Kurdish and Iraqi forces during the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), which began in 2014.
France has also taken an active role in Syria, backing a political transition process while urging inclusion and respect for Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity.
“France has been supporting the news authorities and Damascus, but this support, as we always said, is only conditioned to one thing: the respect of the diversity of Syria and the ethnological diversity, the religious diversity, and the political diversity,” Lemoine said.
“We have always said to the new authorities in Damascus that this new democratic transition that they are leading at the moment should be completely inclusive and that should include all the different communities in Syria and particularly the Kurds,” he added.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in April met with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander Mazloum Abdi, urging respect for Kurdish rights in the country. France has been an active member of the US-led coalition against ISIS and recently joined efforts to facilitate intra-Kurdish dialogue in northeast Syria (Rojava), where tensions among rival Kurdish political parties have stalled progress.
In late April, a group of Kurdish political parties in Syria issued a rare joint statement calling for a decentralized, democratic system that guarantees Kurdish rights and enables national dialogue. The Syrian presidency condemned the move, arguing it contradicted a March 10 agreement signed by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Abdi.
That agreement recognized Kurds as an integral part of Syria, declared a nationwide ceasefire, and laid out steps to integrate the SDF into Syria’s national army and government institutions.