HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE

The honour of the French Ambassador, it appears is more important than that of France.

That is what we have glimpsed from a letter from Mr Michel Tretout, the French Ambassador in Seychelles, which finally found its way to us by snail mail this week, long after its content had been the subject of an article in the People – the organ of the SPPF, lambasting our editor Ralph Volcere.

In his letter the French ambassador made a very un-diplomatic personal attack on the character of our editor describing him as far from being a man of culture, unlike the French President, and that M Volcere is a disgrace to the profession of journalism, quoting he claimed the words of a former priest who has been away from Seychelles for at least fifteen years.

Seeking solace from other Seychellois personalities, he tried rather unscrupulously and mischievously we think, to drag our former president and founder of this newspaper, Mr James Mancham to his side by describing him a “un Francophile”.  Unknowingly perhaps, M Tretout has only opened another can of worms. M Tretout ought to read Mr Mancham’s book Paradise Raped – in which he described vividly how French the ambassador during the time of our independence, M Choiseul de Praslin, fitted the description of a “coward” and how the French was complicit in the coup d’etat. With friends like the French ambassador who need enemies.

It is rather disturbing that the French Ambassador should take personal offence at what was merely a dig at the expense of French diplomats generally in our issue of 19th October by quoting a comment attributed to the current French president that diplomats are cowards, which appeared in a book written by a journalist. We must admit, we never read the book but picked the comment from an online newspaper which reproduced what M Tretout calls a “malencontreuse” (unfortunate) comment by the then candidate Sarkozy. Incidentally, M Tretout may not wish to be told that according to the Wall Street Journal, M Sarkozy has also proposed “getting rid of Quai d’Orsay”, where the French Foreign Ministry is situated.

According to M Tretout in his letter, the comment made by M Sarkozy did not apply to him personally but rather to two of his colleagues, the then French Ambassadors in Moscow and Lebanon. In the same breath, however, he went on to remind us that the comment was made while M Sarkozy was a mere candidate therefore not yet president. This argument is somewhat self serving or has M Tretout been infected by the style of politics of the SPPF while reading the People religiously to claim, as he has done, that a candidate may say anything to get elected which he has no intention of honouring while in office? No wonder M Tretout is not in a hurry to remind President Michel that France has yet to receive a centime of the huge debt arrears of Seychelle, which the SPPF has built up over the years. Or is he too embarrassed since France, under M Sarkozy’s predecessors have virtually bankrolled the one-party state in Seychelles under the SPPF?

Mr. Sarkozy has made a reputation as a no-nonsense president. This week he showed exactly what he meant by his “malencontreuse” comment when he personally flew to Chad to deal directly with the President of that country thus showing just how much a coward his ambassador has been.  We are looking forward to see the back of M Tretout and serious French diplomacy take shape in Seychelles. We hope we do not have to wait too long.