Emmanuel Macron to press Egyptian president on human rights

French President Emmanuel Macron is to hold talks on Monday with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo, saying beforehand that he wants to boost ties with the Mideast country in the fight against terrorism but also use the visit to encourage better respect for human rights.

Macron, who is heading a large delegation on a three-day trip to the Arab world’s most populous country, said he wants to “pursue a truthful dialogue on topics of public freedoms and human rights” — an area he feels Egypt has not progressed enough on since he raised it with officials earlier in his mandate.

France, which considers itself the birthplace of human rights, has come under pressure by advocates to raise the issue with general-turned-President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, whose human rights record has been widely condemned and is seen as worsening.

Macron said that too many people who present no threat to the country were being jailed.

“It is on this area of what is happening in Egypt that I will continue to focus things. I will do it more openly during this trip,” Macron told reporters on Sunday, adding that he considered it in the interest of Sisi and Egypt to respect human rights.

Macron said he felt the current crackdown on opposition in Egypt, begun after Sisi overthrew his elected but divisive Islamist predecessor in 2013, had become worse than under the country’s longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

“I think what is happening here sooner or later threatens the stability of Egypt,” Macron said. “That’s to say, I think that the policies as they are being done are perceived by intellectuals, the Egyptian civil society, as being even stronger than (under) the Mubarak regime.”

Macron also said that he would raise specific names with Sisi in a confidential discussion. Aside from heightened public emphasis on human rights, he did not mention raising any new specific levers to try and incentivize Sisi.

Rights groups and activists have urged France and other Western powers to halt weapons sales to Egypt, a major purchaser, until it shows improvement on the way it treats its own citizenry. But Macron dismissed using such pressure, saying it was important to respect Egypt’s sovereignty and not cut it off because that could drive it further into the arms of the West’s authoritarian rivals, Russia and China, which Sisi has courted.

Asked specifically if human rights issues could affect specific arms sales, such as one under discussion for additional Rafale advanced fighter jets to Egypt, Macron said such matters were separate.

“I would differentiate between the two subjects, they are not linked for us and they never were.”

Macron arrived earlier in the day in the country’s south, where he visited the famed temple of Abu Simbel and other archaeological sites. He meets Sis on Monday, when he will sign several bilateral accords.

His delegation includes government ministers, two dozen representatives from academic, cultural, and scientific fields, and a dozen business leaders – including the heads of Rafale producer Dassault. Macron will dine with local business leaders and meet the heads of Egypt’s Christian and Muslim communities during the trip, his first to Egypt since taking office in 2017.

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