Rebranded Saudi crown prince meets Macron as rights groups decry ‘hypocrisy’

Less than five years after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets French President Emmanuel Macron for a working lunch in Paris on Friday.

The rehabilitation of the man the CIA determined had “approved” the Istanbul consulate operation is now a done deal. The transformation of the Saudi crown prince from “pariah” – a term Joe Biden used on the US presidential campaign trail – to indispensable diplomatic figure has been quick and thorough, marking an era of realpolitik on steroids.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler – known widely as “MBS” – has emerged from global isolation to meet and greet leaders who were once wary of engaging with the young, brash crown price with a tarnished human rights record.

Last summer, Biden met bin Salman in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, where the two leaders fist-bumped, sparking condemnations from the likes of Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who called it “a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on US foreign policy”.

A week later, bin Salman – known widely as “MBS” – was in Paris, where he was greeted with a more cordial handshake with Macron at the Élysée presidential palace.

The war in Ukraine has unleashed tectonic geopolitical shifts, opening divides between the so-called “West”, backing Kyiv against Russian aggression, and countries who view themselves as part of the “Global South”, that have refused to take a position on the conflict.

The Global South’s proclaimed neutrality has not convinced critics, who argue that transactional foreign policy in effect translates as a pro-Russian position. Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, is particularly susceptible to the criticism. The kingdom’s decision, at an October 22 OPEC+ Plus summit, to cut oil production to keep prices high, was viewed as a deliberate snub to the US and Europe preparing for a difficult winter.

The schedule of bin Salman’s second visit to France since the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflects the changing dynamics on the global stage. It’s also a case study in how a leader once shunned in most capitals has managed to cater to the imperatives of global powers while fulfilling his own agenda.

Wooing leaders with an eye on 2030

The Saudi crown prince’s latest visit is not a rushed one. MBS left the kingdom on Wednesday, according to the Saudi Royal Court, for France, where he owns the Chateau Louis XIV, a modern building in Versailles that seeks to replicate the opulence of French imperial palaces.

Following his Friday working lunch with Macron at the Élysée palace, bin Salman will attend a reception in Paris on Monday to support Riyadh’s bid to host the World Expo 2030, also called the “universal exhibition”.

Days later, the Saudi crown prince will attend the June 22-23 Summit for a New Global Financing Pact hosted by Macron.

The French president announced the summit at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November, which is aimed at building “a new contract between the countries of the North and the South to address climate change and the global crisis”, according to the official website.

While Macron aims to try to bridge the North-South divide exacerbated by the Ukraine war, the Saudi crown prince has his own agenda during his French visit. “Mohammed bin Salman wants to enjoy the presence of many leaders, from Africa mainly, in order to get their support, their vote, for the universal exhibition [Expo 2030] … it’s a file that MBS is personally following. This is the reason for his long presence in France,” explained Georges Malbrunot, senior reporter at the French daily, Le Figaro, in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“There are different topics on the agenda: Ukraine, Lebanon, etcetera. It’s a kind of public relations operation for Mohammed bin Salman, who was a pariah five years ago after the horrible Jamal Khashoggi assassination,” said Malbrunot. “But he’s an international actor now. Nobody can avoid him.”

Hosting the World Expo 2030 has turned into a hot button issue, with more than a dozen human rights groups writing an open letter to the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), urging the world fair organiser to drop the Saudi candidacy due to its “abysmal” human rights record.

But 2030 is a critical year for the Gulf kingdom since it marks the target date for Vision 2030, an ambitious economic diversification and reform plan launched by the crown prince in 2016. Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup. “For sure 2030 is a very important year for Saudi Arabia,” said Malbrunot.  “If he gets the universal expo for 2030, it will be a big victory for Saudi Arabia.”

Keeping various wives happy

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began 18 months ago, the Middle East region has witnessed a complex realignment of powers, which some experts call the signs of a changing global order.

Earlier this year, China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, prompting a reopening of diplomatic ties between the region’s biggest rivals and hopes for a de-escalation of the war in Yemen, where the two powers waged a proxy war over the past eight years.

Beyond the Middle East, Saudi Arabia played a critical role last year in brokering a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, which secured the release of 300 people.

Meanwhile the convergence of Russian and Saudi oil interests, which were on display during the October 2022 OPEC+ Plus meeting, have started to strain. While Saudi Arabia followed through on the agreement and exported less oil, Russia increased its sales, at cheap prices, to countries such as India and China.

As Global South hegemons – such as South Africa, Brazil and India – were under fire for their pro-Moscow tilt, Saudi Arabia managed a diplomatic tour de force last month – with a little help from France.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise landing in Jeddah last month to address an Arab League summit, he arrived on a French Airbus emblazoned with the tricolour. France had flown in the Ukrainian leader for an important meeting, marking a diplomatic achievement for Paris.

“Macron has become invested in helping rehabilitate MBS’s image on the global stage,” said Mohamad Bazzi, a professor and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. “Most players in the Middle East region have an interest in conveying the message that the US is not the dominant power in the region anymore. The consistent Saudi messaging is that they have options other than the US. Macron might be trying to play the role as another peacemaker trying to de-escalate tensions in the region.”

Malbrunot describes the geopolitical shifts in terms of polygamy, which is legal in Saudi Arabia. “We used to have Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally with the US. Now with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has multiple wives. They still have the US wife, but not only. They have the Chinese wife now because China is the first country where they sell their oil. They have the Russian wife, they have the European wife,” explained Malbrunot.

The costs of ‘doing business with tyrants’

When it comes to Europe, France has always been more forgiving towards MBS than countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. The clemency was driven by weapons, not Christian values. Following Khashoggi’s assassination, France – unlike Germany and the Netherlands – refrained from suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Paris and Riyadh have mutually compatible agendas in the arms bazaar. The international arms transfer trends for 2022, released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), confirmed longstanding trends: Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top three arms importers while France is among the world’s top three arms exporters.

It’s a transactional relationship that draws the ire of Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an NGO founded by Khashoggi. “Macron is basically rolling out the red carpet for Mohammed bin Salman to try to secure arms sales. Macron has really sold France and France’s values for a few golden francs,” said Whitson.

Nearly a year ago, when the Saudi crown prince made his first trip to France since Khashoggi’s killing, DAWN, along with other NGOs, filed a universal jurisdiction complaint before the Paris tribunal arguing that MBS is an accomplice to the torture, enforced disappearance, and the murder of Khashoggi.

But Paris has so far failed to appoint an investigative judge to examine the case, prompting DAWN to release a statement noting that the delay “suggests that French authorities are deliberately dragging their feet and politicising what should be a straightforward judicial procedure”.

“Macron is wagging a finger at other countries for selling arms to Russia, lecturing them about international law and scolding them for harming human rights. It’s a shocking display of hypocrisy,” said Whitson.

France is not the only Western power behaving hypocritically, concedes Whitson, pointing to the Biden administration’s decision in November to grant MBS immunity, as the head of the Saudi government, in a US legal case.

Malbrunot notes that bin Salman’s entry into the international fold under the current circumstances is inevitable. “He’s an actor in the Ukraine-Russian war, he’s an actor now in the Middle East with the rapprochement with Iran … realpolitik has taken the lead now. So Mohammed bin Salman can’t be avoided,” he noted.

When asked if Le Figaro’s readers would be outraged over Macron’s meeting with a leader castigated for his human rights records, Malbrunot believed it was not the case.

“I think they’re not upset anymore with the human rights record because, I guess, there is this aspect of reality, which can’t be denied, that Saudi Arabia is a very important country, not only in the oil market, but also diplomatically now,” he said.

Whitson, however, believes the resignation is dangerous. “French readers should understand that there is a cost of doing business with tyrants,” she said. “The cost is democracy. If dictatorships around the world can buy our governments with money, if they can undermine our values with money, we don’t stand a chance persuading the world that democracy and human rights matter when our governments are willing to sell ourselves for money.”