A COP29 without a French president. Emmanuel Macron will not go to the UN climate summit organized in Baku, Azerbaijan, from Monday November 11. “No French leader will participate in the high-level segment, this is the first time since the Paris agreement” of 2015, declared the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, in the Senate, Wednesday November 6. Around a hundred heads of state and government are expected during the summit sequence for leaders, on November 12 and 13, according to the organizers of COP29.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also be absent. On the other hand, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Spaniard Pedro Sanchez are expected there.
The absence of Emmanuel Macron takes place in a context of deterioration of relations between France and Azerbaijan, after the French condemnation of the Azerbaijani military offensive against the Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh, in September 2023, which ended with the recapture of this region by Baku and the exodus of more than 120,000 Armenian civilians.
France has since increased its rapprochement with Armenia, Azerbaijan's historic rival, by supplying it with weapons and supporting its position. In response, Baku chose to fuel independence movements in French overseas territories. On Azerbaijani television and newspapers, strong anti-French sentiment became omnipresent.
The organization of this summit by Azerbaijan is also denounced by numerous French political figures from all sides. This is particularly the case of Anne Hidalgo (PS), Laurent Wauquiez (LR) and Yannick Jadot (Ecologists). They called “the government to support strong and symbolic action for the boycott of COP29”in a column published in Le FigaroTHURSDAY. With around thirty other personalities, they demand “the immediate and unconditional release of the Armenian hostages, the right to the safe return of the 120,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh (…) and respect for the territorial integrity of Armenia”.
The ruling regime in Azerbaijan has also intensified its repression against its opponents in view of COP29, according to a recent report by the NGO Human Rights Watch.
“We have complex relations, 'complicated' in diplomatic language, with Azerbaijan, and there will be no event in which French officials will participate which would in any way highlight this or that element of Azeri policy.”detailed Agnès Pannier-Runacher before the Senate Committee on Regional Planning and Sustainable Development.
Despite this stormy context, France refuses “empty chair policy”. Even if the French Minister for Ecological Transition explains that she would have preferred that COP29 “don’t stand in Baku”she will go there from November 21 to 24 for the final phase of the negotiation. “It is up to us to wear the colors of the Paris agreementsaid Agnès Pannier-Runacher. The COP is a multilateral UN negotiation which is the only climate-related negotiation that brings together all the countries in the world.”
France and the European Union want to continue to fully mobilize on climate negotiations, while the election of Donald Trump could call into question certain progress. The main challenge of COP29 is to revise upwards the amount of annual climate aid from developed countries to developing countries, beyond the current $100 billion.
