The French ambassador to Belarus has left Minsk after being ordered in a foreign country, AFP reported on Sunday. No rationalization in regards to the reported expulsion has been instantly accessible.
AFP’s Sunday night report mentioned that Ambassador Nicolas de Bouillane de Lacoste has already departed from Minsk, and that the Belarusian authorities had set an October 18 deadline for his departure.
The company cited a French embassy spokesman, who mentioned that the envoy despatched his goodbyes to the employees earlier than leaving, but additionally recorded a “video message addressing the Belarusian folks,” which is claimed to be scheduled to look on Monday.
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It was not instantly clear what prompted the envoy’s purported expulsion and, up to now, the Belarusian authorities has made no official assertion on the matter.
The purported expulsion, nonetheless, got here simply days after the ambassador hosted a number of representatives of the recently-banned Belarusian NGO ‘Govori Pravdu’ (‘Inform the Fact’) within the embassy. On Wednesday, the envoy met the NGO members, together with its co-leader Andrey Dmitriev, one of many candidates in final 12 months’s controversial presidential election.
Paris and Minsk have been at odds since August 2020, after Paris, alongside different EU nations and the US, refused to acknowledge the outcomes of presidential election received by the long-term Belarus chief Alexander Lukashenko.
As a substitute, Paris courted Belarusian opposition chief Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. She visited France again in September, assembly prime officers together with International Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
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The French ambassador had personally proven disrespect to President Lukashenko. The diplomat, who assumed his submit final 12 months, skipped the presentation of credentials ceremony, by which newly-appointed envoys meet a nation’s chief. As a substitute, he proceeded to provide copies of his credentials to Belarusian International Minister Vladimir Makey.
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