France boosts Russia's claim to power

France wants to sell Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is currently negotiating a deal to that effect with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy during a state visit to Paris. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung criticises the potential sale: "For sure, France's shipping industry is in trouble. And for sure it's a contradiction to - superficially - treat Moscow like a partner and at the same time place an embargo on it. But a Mistral is not just a normal carrier, as the French government claims; its Nato partners won't be fooled by such soothing arguments. It is an offensive weapon, and that's precisely why Russia wants to buy it: if it had possessed such a ship during the war with Georgia the war wouldn't have lasted more than forty minutes. Moscow isn't keeping us in the dark about its motive for the purchase: to project power. This motive annoys the Eastern Europeans and the Baltic states, and you can't blame them either."

» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » EU Policy, » Corporations, » France, » Russia

» To the complete press review of Tuesday, March 2, 2010