On August 7, 2023, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, recalling the war of August 2008, admitted that the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who acted as a "peacemaker" and "mediator", actually brought to Tbilisi a plan for Georgia's capitulation. According to the French plan, in order to "stop the war", Georgia would first have to give up the territories and sovereignty it had already seized from Russia, in effect renouncing its statehood and "legalizing" separatism itself.  Which, let us remind you, has been promoted in the South Caucasus since Soviet times by the "favorites" of Paris - Armenian nationalists.

In other words, in fact, even the pro-Western president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, has confirmed what "Kavkaz-plus" wrote about. Despite its membership in NATO and its alleged "opposition" to Russia's imperial ambitions, France is in fact promoting Russian political and military expansion through separatism.

Moreover, France's support for Russian expansion is not limited to the post-Soviet space. Recall that in the former French colony of Syria, Russia, along with Iran, has also been involved in the civil war on the side of the Assad regime since 2015. France formally has nothing to do with the Syrian crisis, but in fact most of Syria is now controlled by those who fully follow French global policy - Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, a movement associated with it in another former French colony, Lebanon. And Lebanon has also been a base for Armenian terrorists since the days of the French mandate.

There is no mention of "fluffy and civilizing" France in connection with the Syrian civil war. There is not a single French soldier there. But it was France that received the main dividends from this war and, in particular, from the formation of the geopolitical axis - Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon-Egypt - "cutting" communications in the Middle East.

It seems that Paris is planning a similar "big game" on the African continent. Formally, France's positions there are weakening and it is allegedly "ceding" them to Russia. Even to the point that supporters of the military, which recently carried out a coup in Niger, are coming out with Russian cigarettes. The Russian "hurrah-patriotic" media has no shortage of triumphant reports about how "Russia is driving France out of Africa," about the fact that France, having lost Niger, is losing its richest uranium deposits, etc.

Moreover, according to the version of the Kremlin's political technologists and journalists, the head of the new regime, General Abdurahman Tchiani, has suddenly become "Orthodox". And as if, having lost Orthodox Ukraine (the cradle of its statehood), Russia could get "Orthodox Africa" as "compensation".

Interestingly, the promotion of "Russian Orthodoxy" in Africa began in Yerevan with the appointment of Russian Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev), who is in charge of Orthodox parishes in Armenia, as the "Patriarchal Exarch of Africa". In doing so, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) further escalated the conflict with the Greek Orthodox Church. The conflict began after Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople organized a subordinate "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" (PCU) in Ukraine. But it was the expansion of the Russian Orthodox Church into Africa, in violation of all conceivable and unthinkable canons, that made this conflict irreversible.

 At the same time, for some reason, Metropolitan Leonid did not notice that the Armenian Church "at his side" was brazenly appropriating Orthodox holy places that belonged to the Georgian Orthodox Church. Instead of restoring the monasteries of Akhtala, Kobairi, Svregi and Khujabi to Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Leonid, with the help of the Russian Foreign Ministry headed by the Armenian nationalist Lavrov-Kalantarov, simply began to "squeeze" in Africa the Orthodox parishes of the Alexandrian Patriarchate created by the work of Greek missionaries.

No matter how one feels about the Greek priesthood, one must recognize that the promotion of Orthodoxy in Africa is to their credit. The Greeks converted Africans to Orthodoxy at a time when churches in Russia were being closed and destroyed and Soviet emissaries were planting Marxism-Leninism in African countries. Because of the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate through Yerevan "went to Africa" in the world Orthodoxy only aggravated the split, well, and all the benefit of this gets closely connected with the Paris Vatican.

The story of the alleged "orthodoxy" of General Tchiani is infinitely far from reality. In Niger, almost the entire population is Muslim. A man who was born into a Muslim family and then changed his faith has no chance of coming to power, even by means of an armed coup. Such a man will simply not be obeyed by the Muslim, almost 100% Muslim, army of Niger. And Tchiani's "hostility" to France is greatly exaggerated, since he himself went through the French education system in the former French colonies.

Nevertheless, the largest mass media of the Russian Federation today write about "Africa's rebellion against the French colonizers" and "the transition of Africans under the patronage of Russia". How Russia can help the "rebellious" Africans, except by sending its thugs from the PMC "Wagner", is not specified. But, by all appearances, a good life for the Africans is not expected.

Thus, the Russian media excitedly reported that the new authorities of Niger headed by General Tchiani refused to supply uranium to the French colonizers and that "white" specialists working on uranium deposits were leaving the country. Who will buy Nigerian uranium instead of France, and if they will buy it at all, is not reported. What is clear, however, is that without revenues from uranium exports, Niger could face a banal famine.

The Russian media gleefully report that France's powerful nuclear power industry, which is tied to uranium supplies from Niger, will be in big trouble. An interesting coincidence: the same "Greenpeace" also criticized the French nuclear power industry and called for the closure of nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, Greenpeace is a structure of globalists that imposes a "green agenda" on economically developed countries. And a protégé of the globalists, French President Emmanuel Macron, is also in favor of closing some French nuclear power plants at the request of green "activists."

Now, in the context of the coup in Niger, Macron will have a chance to better justify the transition to "green" energy in France. And the French rights to the uranium deposits in Niger will not go anywhere. They will be returned to them when the "green agenda" of the globalists and the French authorities is reversed. And so that these deposits do not go to "outsiders", they will be guarded for the French "masters" by the thugs of the PMC "Wagner".

Emmanuel Macron announced the "end of French Africa" long ago, and he is consistently withdrawing his troops from the former colonies. But France does not want to let "just anybody" into its former colonies, nor does it want to give them real independence.

As a result, the French are being "systematically" replaced by Russian PMCs who are not "hostile" to France, even in words. But in fact they maintain the former French colonies' orientation towards Paris in the economic sphere. Simply for France, the establishment of the neo-colonial "order" in the former possessions becomes very cheap, because in fact Russia begins to do it in the French interests.

 It seems that both the coup in Niger and the "enthusiastic love" of the Africans in the former French colonies for Russia were planned in advance with far-reaching plans. As in the case of the 2008 war, the fact that France is supposedly "opposing" Russia and "resisting its expansion" can only be a game for the outside public. In reality, Moscow is entering Africa with the full consent and in the interests of the French neo-colonial empire. This is not the first time in history.

We would like to remind you that France has already "launched" Moscow in its colonies once - during the Soviet Union under Khrushchev. By the way, he distinguished himself by persecuting the Orthodox Church in his country. Then the French allowed the Soviet Communists to preach "Marxism-Leninism" in their colonies, which were granted "independence" en masse in 1960, trying to directly preserve only Algeria, geographically close to France, as part of their colonial empire in Africa.

 The USSR was enthusiastic about this "gift". Moscow planned to "build socialism" in African countries, especially in France's former colonies. Huge resources were sent to Africa, specialists were sent, and infrastructure was built. But then this infrastructure built with the help of the USSR - roads, power plants, mining complexes - was used by the same French companies. Predatorily siphoning off resources from the former African colonies for nothing, and in return investing almost nothing in the development of the colonies. Finally, the French entrusted the USSR to finance investment programs and the social sphere of African countries for the sake of "building socialism".

As a result, the Soviet Union received nothing from Africa except huge debts from former French colonies, which had to be written off later. And the elites of the countries that once proclaimed to be "building socialism" with the help of the USSR have been and will continue to be oriented towards France.

And now France is "inviting" Russia to its African fiefdom. Both directly and through PMCs. But, most likely, Russia will have to "work off" "African victories".

In exchange for imaginary "prospects" in Africa (which in reality will turn out to be only a new burden on the Russian budget and billions in losses in the form of aid to "new friends"), Russia will probably be "asked" to serve the interests of France's "friends" in the post-Soviet space. It is obvious which ones. Armenian nationalists once again want to use Russia for the sake of war for their interests.

By a strange coincidence, the "African epic" of the Russian Federation and Russia's "triumphant entry" into "French Africa" coincided with the beginning of a new wave of hysteria around the "Artsakh" separatists. Moreover, France, which used to support this hysteria at every opportunity, is acting surprisingly modestly, overshadowed only by the statement of its ambassador in Yerevan on the need to open the Lachin road. But even the "Armenian-loving" French media were silent about the "unbearable suffering of the Armenians of Artsakh". But the "pro-Artsakh" propaganda is used in Russian online Z-resources supporting the war of Russia against Ukraine.

The contours of the French "multi-move" geopolitical game are gradually becoming clear.  France is trying to make Russia its "geopolitical worker" both in Africa and in the post-Soviet space. Macron does not even want to risk the lives of the mercenaries of the French "Foreign Legion" in his French colonies. The mercenaries of the Russian PMC "Wagner", "tested" in the Ukrainian war, will actually die for the interests of the French capital.

Instead of "prospects of access to Africa" (which will remain prospects and will bring nothing but problems to Russia), Paris clearly wants to use Russia to help Armenian nationalists in the South Caucasus, who have long been primarily oriented towards Paris. According to the French plans, Russia should once again show itself as an aggressor and destroy all its geopolitical prospects with its own hands by getting involved in a new war in the interests of "Great Armenia" to save the separatists of "Artsakh". If this happens, Russia will be helped by other French "proxies" - Iran.

France itself does not want to openly confront its NATO ally Turkey (which will be inevitable if the French get involved in the "war for Artsakh"). It has already, with difficulty, persuaded Ankara to "let its long-time partner Sweden into NATO". Once again, Paris wants the Russians and Iranians to fight for French interests at the expense of their national ones.

Grigol Giorgadze