(Baku) Representatives of French independence groups agreed on Thursday to create a joint “liberation front” at a congress held in Azerbaijan, amid heightened tensions between Paris and the Caucasian country.
“The leaders of the parties agreed to create the International Front for the Liberation of French Colonies,” said the Baku Initiative Group (BIG), an organization promoted by the Azerbaijani state that supported the congress.
“The future program of the Front will be to unite the efforts of the colonies in their process of decolonization,” added the BIG, specifying that the representatives had denounced in a joint declaration “the racist policy and the supposed repressions” of the French State.
This “Congress of French Colonies”, held over two days in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, was officially organized by the Popular Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe, with the support of the BIG.
According to its organizers, it brought together representatives of around twenty independence parties and movements, notably from Corsica, New Caledonia (South Pacific), Guadeloupe and Martinique (Caribbean).
Representatives from Saint Martin and the island of Bonaire, two Dutch territories in the Caribbean Sea, were present as guests of honor, according to the organizers.
Baku criticizes France for being a major ally of Armenia, which for three decades supported separatists in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, finally completely reconquered by the Azerbaijani army in September 2023.
Paris, for its part, has accused Baku of seeking to interfere in its domestic politics, particularly during the crisis in New Caledonia, a French territory shaken since May by a deadly revolt.
The participation of Caledonian elected officials in the Baku congress has sparked strong criticism from non-independence parties in New Caledonia.
A New Caledonian MP, Nicolas Metzdorf, has contacted the Paris public prosecutor, citing alleged acts of “treason”.
Before the violence broke out in May, a memorandum of cooperation had been signed on April 18 between the Azerbaijani Parliament and the Congress of New Caledonia (the local parliament of the French archipelago chaired by one of the leaders of the pro-independence party Union Calédonienne).
Last summer, another conference in Baku invited activists from Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and Polynesia.