Hollande in UAE to push Rafale jets, Total oil firm
14 Jan 2013 6:19 AM IST
French President Francois Hollande leads a charm offensive to the United Arab Emirates this week aimed at selling Rafale fighter jets and helping oil firm Total retain a place in the Gulf state’s largest onshore oil concession.
Hollande, backed by a top-level team comprising the heads of blue-chip companies as well as his defence, foreign, industrial recovery and environment ministers, will hold meetings with the rulers and senior officials from Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
The president’s office said it wanted to buttress its commercial relations with the Emirates, its biggest market in the region.
More than 500 French companies are based in the UAE, which had nearly four billion euros of investments in France last year.
‘We are not ashamed of backing our companies,’ the Elysee presidential office said in a statement.
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, is Hollande’s first stop during the lightning one-day trip. He will a renewable energy conference and a French military base set up in 2009, home to 500 troops.
He will also hold talks with Abu Dhabi’s President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed Al-Nahayan.
France is keen to make its first foreign sale of the Rafale, which has struggled to find buyers, to support a project that has cost tens of billions of euros.
A diplomatic source said no contract would be signed during Hollande’s visit but the potential sale was being discussed.
‘The file is still on the table, it is obviously of great interest for French industry, it is being followed closely. It has chances of succeeding,’ the source said.
‘ITALIAN ENVOY ESCAPES GUN ATTACK IN LIBYA’
Italy’s consul to Benghazi in eastern Libya escaped unscathed after an attack on his bullet-proof car in the city, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting local security sources. The car in which the consul, Guido De Sanctis, was travelling was shot at on Saturday when it stopped at a crossroads, but no one was injured, the report said. The consul was returning home after work and the car was hit by several bullets.
FRENCH AIR FORCE STRIKES ISLAMIST BASES IN MALI
France’s air force launched fresh strikes in northern Mali today, targeting a camp used by jihadist fighters and a weapons depot for the Islamist insurgent group Ansar Dine, officials and residents said.
Witnesses said French fighter jets struck a camp used by Islamist militants in Lere, around 150 kilometres north of Konna, a key central town which government troops recaptured with French aerial backing on Friday.
Hollande, backed by a top-level team comprising the heads of blue-chip companies as well as his defence, foreign, industrial recovery and environment ministers, will hold meetings with the rulers and senior officials from Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
The president’s office said it wanted to buttress its commercial relations with the Emirates, its biggest market in the region.
More than 500 French companies are based in the UAE, which had nearly four billion euros of investments in France last year.
‘We are not ashamed of backing our companies,’ the Elysee presidential office said in a statement.
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates, is Hollande’s first stop during the lightning one-day trip. He will a renewable energy conference and a French military base set up in 2009, home to 500 troops.
He will also hold talks with Abu Dhabi’s President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed Al-Nahayan.
France is keen to make its first foreign sale of the Rafale, which has struggled to find buyers, to support a project that has cost tens of billions of euros.
A diplomatic source said no contract would be signed during Hollande’s visit but the potential sale was being discussed.
‘The file is still on the table, it is obviously of great interest for French industry, it is being followed closely. It has chances of succeeding,’ the source said.
‘ITALIAN ENVOY ESCAPES GUN ATTACK IN LIBYA’
Italy’s consul to Benghazi in eastern Libya escaped unscathed after an attack on his bullet-proof car in the city, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting local security sources. The car in which the consul, Guido De Sanctis, was travelling was shot at on Saturday when it stopped at a crossroads, but no one was injured, the report said. The consul was returning home after work and the car was hit by several bullets.
FRENCH AIR FORCE STRIKES ISLAMIST BASES IN MALI
France’s air force launched fresh strikes in northern Mali today, targeting a camp used by jihadist fighters and a weapons depot for the Islamist insurgent group Ansar Dine, officials and residents said.
Witnesses said French fighter jets struck a camp used by Islamist militants in Lere, around 150 kilometres north of Konna, a key central town which government troops recaptured with French aerial backing on Friday.
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