France vs. Azerbaijan: The World's Explosive New Rivalry

Even by the standards of the 2020s, the events in New Caledonia in May 2024 were explosive. Following a proposed constitutional change, the French Pacific island territory was engulfed in large-scale rioting. For days, the capital of Nouméa burned.

Nine people were killed, with hundreds injured. Things got so bad that French President Emmanuel Macron was forced to declare an emergency and deploy thousands of riot police. In the weeks since those bloodsoaked days, a fragile calm has returned to New Caledonia.

Although there have been flare-ups of violence since, peace has mostly held. Yet, on the wider geopolitical stage, the impacts of the rioting are still being felt — not just because of the open challenge to French overseas power, but because of who was involved in that challenge. Rather than being solely homegrown protests, or originating in Moscow or Beijing, Paris believes the riots were fueled by one small South Caucasus state: Azerbaijan.

An oil-rich country of barely ten million, Azerbaijan is best-known for its energy diplomacy and longstanding rivalry with neighbor Armenia. Now, though, it stands accused of meddling in the affairs of a nuclear power, of pushing a French territory to the brink of anarchy.

Fire in the Pacific: New Caledonia’s Deep Colonial Wounds

For long-time residents of New Caledonia, the unrest that gripped the Pacific islands in late-spring of 2024 likely brought back dark memories. The site of a low-intensity civil war in the 1980s, the territory has long had a complicated relationship with its French overlord. Conquered in 1853, its indigenous Kanak people spent over a hundred years under direct colonial rule — a period that saw them suffer what Politico has called “systemic discrimination and chronic underdevelopment.”

When the tensions bubbled over in the 1980s, it led to years of violence. Although relatively few people died — the death toll can be counted in the dozens — the experience of French officers and militia groups killing Kanaks became a symbol of European hypocrisy. In 1988, though, a transformative agreement was struck with the Front National de Libération Kanak et Socialiste to end the war.

Later renewed in 1998 and given the name the Nouméa Accord, the agreement was nothing less than a roadmap to New Caledonian independence. The Economist describes it as a deal that “promised economic ‘rebalancing’ to stimulate the emergence of a Kanak middle class, devolution of powers from Paris, a power-sharing local executive and, critically, three referendums on independence, originally to be held 15-20 years later.” Importantly, the voter rolls for those referendums would be frozen as they were in 1998, because the indigenous Kanaks did not trust Paris not to flood the territory with French citizens to swing the outcome.

Anyone who moved to New Caledonia after the Nouméa Accord would not be able to vote on local matters. The French position is that, once these three referendums were held, it would be possible to revisit the voter rolls. And holding the referendums is exactly what New Caledonia did.

In 2018, 2020, and 2021, the question of independence was put to voters. All three times, it was rejected: by narrow margins in 2018 and 2020, but by an overwhelming majority of 96.5% in 2021. The explanation for such a stark swing is simple.

Because of the pandemic, Kanak leaders demanded the 2021 referendum be invalidated, since it interfered with their funeral customs. When the vote went ahead, the indigenous community boycotted it. From the Kanak perspective, then, only two of the three promised referendums have been held.

The French position, by contrast, says all three have gone ahead, and independence was defeated.

The May 14 Explosion and Its Bloody Aftermath

It was from this disputed position that the island-shaking mistake of May 14, 2024, stemmed. That day, the National Assembly in Paris passed a new law to unfreeze New Caledonia’s electoral rolls. With the provisions of the Nouméa Accord fulfilled, they argued, it would be undemocratic to refuse long-term residents who arrived after 1998 the vote.

The Kanak minority — who today make up about 40 percent of the 250,000-strong population — disagreed. And pro-independence activists would soon make their feelings felt. The riots started with large-scale arson around Nouméa.

Over a night of fury, shops, homes, and businesses went up in flames. Roadblocks were thrown up around the capital. Armed men started appearing on the streets.

By the second night, the first killings had been reported: three Kanaks shot dead by unknown attackers, and one French policeman murdered in a suburb. Yet even this was only the beginning. What followed were days of anger unseen since the civil war.

Nearly two hundred police officers were injured in the unrest, with over 1,000 rioters arrested. Nine people were killed, including those who later died of their injuries. At its height, the New York Times claimed that the riots “drove the territory to the brink of civil war.”

Ultimately, New Caledonia was pulled back from the brink by a combination of massive police deployment and a promise from President Macron to suspend the voting reforms. Even so, much of the territory remained under curfew, alcohol sales were banned, and young Kanak activists still maintained roadblocks outside the capital. There was even a flare-up of renewed violence on June 23, when France transferred seven detained independence activists to the mainland.

Still, the immediate danger seemed to be over — at least on the physical level. Because, in the realm of geopolitics, things were only getting murkier. When France first alerted the world to outside meddling in the riots, it was assumed it had to be the usual suspects.

Russia is still systematically trying to damage NATO members for supporting Ukraine, while China has long coveted New Caledonia’s vast nickel reserves. Yet, it would not be Moscow or Beijing that Paris pointed the finger at. Instead, it would be a far-stranger candidate: the tiny ex-Soviet state of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s Fingerprints on the New Caledonia Crisis

When France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, first blamed Azerbaijan for the violence in New Caledonia, the global media could barely contain its mirth. Here was a nuclear-armed state — one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — blaming a meltdown in its own territory on a nation most people probably could not point to on a map. And even if Baku was stirring the pot a little, who could blame it?

One wag told the Telegraph: “If the French State shot itself in the foot in New Caledonia, I’m not surprised that its political adversaries are taking advantage, but it wasn’t its adversaries who fired the shots.” But then people started to look into the claims further, and things quickly stopped being quite so amusing. The official social media monitoring body, Viginum, reported it had traced a tsunami of inflammatory Facebook and Twitter posts to Baku — posts that called the French police “murderers” and pushed the concept of France being a colonialist state.

Meanwhile, the Diplomat obtained footage of protestors in New Caledonia not only waving Azerbaijani flags, but also posters of Azeri president Ilham Aliyev. Off the record, French intelligence officials briefed that they had been following activity from Azerbaijan in New Caledonia for months. On the record, Interior Minister Darmanin insisted: “This isn’t a fantasy.

I regret that some of the separatists have made a deal with Azerbaijan.” Azerbaijan has strongly rejected any claims that it was meddling in the New Caledonia riots. Yet, if Baku was indeed involved, it would not be completely out of the blue.

Rather, it would fit with a pattern of behavior that observers have noted for a while. Last November, an online disinformation campaign questioning Paris’s ability to keep the 2024 Olympics safe was traced to Baku. A month later, Azeri journalists who had traveled to Nouméa for the South Pacific Defense Ministers’ Meeting were discovered to be linked to Azerbaijan’s intelligence services.

That same month, both France and Azerbaijan indulged in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats. In Baku, France24 reports that a Frenchman was arrested and charged with espionage. Perhaps the strongest sign that Baku might be interested in pouring gasoline onto the New Caledonia wildfire came not from the shadows, but from out in the open — specifically, in the form of the Baku Initiative Group.

An anti-colonial, informal grouping of fourteen political movements, the Baku Initiative Group was supposedly founded to support decolonization efforts worldwide. Its actual focus is strictly on French overseas territories. France24 describes its members as “independence fighters from French overseas territories and regions such as French Guiana, Martinique, New Caledonia and Guadeloupe.”

The Initiative is headed by the former head of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund, Abbas Abbasov, and has been accused of offering financial and material support to those wanting independence for France’s overseas territories. Former New Caledonian president Philippe Gomes has accused the Initiative of funding pro-independence politicians. President Aliyev’s recent habit of accusing France of “neo-colonialism” adds credence to these accusations.

The Armenia Factor: From Nagorno-Karabakh to French Arms Deals

If the accusations are true, they raise a massive question: why would Azerbaijan pour its oil money into destabilizing a country that is far bigger, far richer, and far more militarily-powerful? After all, if Paris came to seriously believe Baku was a threat, it could make Aliyev pay a steep price. The Diplomat has noted: “Aliyev’s gamble that France will decline retaliation is not without risk.

French energy behemoth Total plays a crucial role in the Azerbaijani oil and gas sector, both in extraction and transit.” The key to this story lies in a country that borders Azerbaijan — a nation known as Armenia. To call France close to Armenia would be to undersell their special relationship.

Home to a large Armenian minority, France was one of the first European countries to recognize the 1915 genocide — later, it made denial of the killings a crime. The Telegraph also points to religion as a factor: Armenian Christianity is one of the oldest churches in the world, and like France, the nation is overwhelmingly Christian. That stands in stark contrast to Azerbaijan, which is heavily Muslim and one of only three countries worldwide — along with Turkey and Pakistan — to explicitly deny there was a genocide.

Still, Paris traditionally managed to maintain cordial relations with both nations. Along with Russia and the USA, it became one of the three core members of the OSCE Minsk Group, dedicated to building peace between the two hostile neighbors. According to France24, this era was something of a golden one between Paris and Baku.

Yet cordial relations with Baku would eventually be undone by Nagorno-Karabakh. An ethnically-Armenian slice of mountainous landscape within Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized borders, Nagorno-Karabakh was the spark for, and focus of, the Armenian-Azeri conflict. Armenia effectively won control of the region during the 1990s, and Azerbaijan spent the next three decades plotting to get it back.

This plotting grew particularly acute towards the end of the 2010s. Flush with oil wealth, Baku began to buy advanced military kit from its close ally Turkey, as well as from Belarus and Israel, the latter of which saw Azerbaijan as a useful bulwark against Iran. By the end of the decade, all that spending had tipped the balance of power heavily in Baku’s favor.

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in the fall of 2020 was one of the most lopsided victories in recent years. Analyst Rob Lee has written about how Baku used drones to destroy the vast majority of Nagorno-Karabakh’s air defenses in the conflict’s opening hours. The weeks that followed saw the Azeris seize seventy percent of the Armenian enclave, at the cost of 7,000 lives.

For France, the conflict was a powerful wakeup call. In rhetoric and diplomacy, Paris started taking increasingly pro-Armenian positions. So annoyed was Azerbaijan that its Foreign Minister demanded France be expelled from the OSCE Minsk Group.

Things only got worse as the 2020s crept onwards. Following a multi-day Azeri offensive to capture strategic heights in 2022, Macron declared: “France will never abandon the Armenians.” When Azerbaijan implemented a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh later in the year, the French Senate passed a resolution supporting sanctions against Baku.

Then came the events of September 19, 2023. Prior to that day, Azerbaijan had assured the international community that it would not try to take Nagorno-Karabakh by force. Those illusions were shattered in the late morning, when a wave of Azeri troops surged across the border.

So intense was the assault that Nagorno-Karabakh surrendered within 24 hours. Shortly after, the enclave’s leaders agreed to dissolve their breakaway statelet. And just like that, centuries of Armenian history in this harsh mountain land came to an abrupt end.

France Arms Armenia as Baku Fumes

In the aftermath of the Azeri conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, there were real fears that Baku might not stop at its internationally-recognized borders. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has been separated from an exclave of its own — known as Nakhchivan — by the southernmost part of Armenia. Even before Nagorno-Karabakh fell, Baku was making noises about forcing a land bridge between its two parts, something that could only be achieved via a land invasion of Armenia.

On paper, such a thing should have been impossible. Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, which states that an attack on one member should be viewed as an attack on all. But Russian peacekeepers stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh after 2020 should have fought back against Azerbaijan’s 2023 assault.

Likewise, fellow CSTO member Belarus should not have armed non-CSTO Azerbaijan with weapons to use against Armenia. Yet in both cases, the reality was the exact opposite from what should have happened. For the first time in decades, the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh had shown Armenia that it could not rely on its traditional allies.

With the threat of renewed Azeri invasion in the air, Yerevan started shopping for new friends. It found one in France. Fall of 2023 saw Paris send officials rushing to Armenia to assure Yerevan that they had their backs.

In October, the then-Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, declared: “France has given its agreement to the conclusion of future contracts with Armenia which will enable the delivery of military equipment to Armenia so that it can ensure its defense.” By February, contracts had been inked for Yerevan to buy assault rifles, with discussions open about the sale of short-range Mistral missiles. That same month, Politico reported that France had begun training Armenian troops, while French military officials would take up roles as defense consultants for Yerevan from July.

More recently, June saw Paris agree to sell Armenia CAESAR self-propelled howitzers — a necessary step for Yerevan as it rushes to modernize its Soviet-style military. Given that Baku can source weaponry from Turkey and Israel, France — along with India — is fast becoming Armenia’s main hope for regaining military parity. Tigran Grigoryan, director of Yerevan’s Regional Center for Democracy and Security, told Politico: “Armenia is seeking Western support to restore the military balance with Azerbaijan.”

While France is partly forging a partnership with Yerevan due to its large Armenian community and longstanding cultural links, Paris has also sensed an opportunity — a once-in-a-generation chance to muscle Russia out of the South Caucasus, just as Moscow is succeeding in supplanting Paris in swathes of Francophone Africa. This is the larger geopolitical background looming behind all of this, an extension of the new Great Game being played between Russia and the West for influence. Seen from Baku, though, such considerations are secondary.

What the Azeris mainly see is a France allying itself with their old enemy. President Aliyev articulated this when he railed against Paris sending weapons to Yerevan and claimed: “France destabilizes not only its past and present colonies but also our region, the South Caucasus, by supporting separatist tendencies and separatists.”

Aliyev’s Gamble: Strongman Branding or Strategic Overreach?

Way back in 2013, Germany suddenly found itself dealing with an increase in smear attacks and anti-Berlin propaganda — propaganda which was soon traced back to Azerbaijan. Although there was nothing like the New Caledonia riots, Germany spent two years weathering a concerted campaign by Azerbaijan to undermine it. Yet, according to independent Baku-based political scientist Altay Goyushov, the intention behind this campaign was never to seriously disrupt the workings of the German state.

Rather, the pressure was intended to boost President Aliyev at home, by making clear that Baku viewed Germany — which had been criticizing Azerbaijan’s human rights record — as an unfriendly nation. Goyushov later told France’s public broadcaster: “In an authoritarian regime, you sometimes need to find a common enemy that allows the country to unite around the leader.” In the German case, the attacks issuing from Baku eventually stopped.

It might be reasonable to expect something similar to happen this time around — that Aliyev will stop provoking the French once he feels it has served his purposes. Until then, though, this theory suggests a turbulent ride ahead. The Diplomat notes that Aliyev’s antagonizing of Western powers is “part of a newly bellicose approach to foreign policy, projecting an image of a leader that can stand toe-to-toe with regional powers and superpowers alike.”

In other words, Aliyev is not trying to damage France for supporting Armenia so much as to demonstrate his own strength — to do the geopolitical equivalent of walking into the prison yard on his first day and breaking the nose of the biggest, meanest figure around. The Azeri president is not the first to try this tack. Although it has recently fallen out of favor, China spent most of the late 2010s pursuing what was dubbed “wolf warrior diplomacy.”

In the Middle East, Israel often browbeats its own allies for offering even the slightest criticism. In Aliyev’s case, though, this belligerence is part of a conscious brand-building: to show his own people that he can not only preside over the successful conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also kick back against far-bigger nations that try to shame him for it. As the Diplomat concludes: “An independent New Caledonia indebted to Azerbaijan may be a long shot.

But showing the Azerbaijani people — as well as neighbors — that Aliyev can dictate terms to superpowers who will only issue toothless complaints in return is enough of a victory.”

A Dangerous Dance With Unpredictable Consequences

The danger, of course, is that Aliyev overplays his hand — that he pushes too hard on a sensitive issue like New Caledonian independence and France drops its restraint in favor of full retaliation. France is so much bigger and so much richer than Azerbaijan that wondering who would win a serious diplomatic spat between the two is not a close contest. Paris has enough economic levers to pull that it could make Baku howl.

And that is not considering the diplomatic muscle France has as a P5 member of the UN Security Council, as well as being a major player in the EU — to where Azerbaijan sells a lot of its gas. Baku must know there is a hard limit to what it can do to antagonize Paris. Were things to start looking serious, it is likely that Aliyev would be smart enough to immediately back off.

Still, it is worth noting that France is also playing a dangerous game in the South Caucasus. While Armenia might be looking for new allies, Yerevan is even more economically dependent on Russia than Azerbaijan is on France and Europe. Geopolitical Monitor has noted that Russian state companies dominate Armenia’s economy, from the transport sector to energy and banking.

While France may be able to boost Yerevan’s military potential, dragging Armenia firmly into the Western camp may be tougher than Paris realizes. At the end of all that, this is a newly-emerging rivalry in what appears to be a fascinating phase — one in which both participants dance around, trying delicately to stop it from spinning into outright hostility. On the one hand, it seems like maybe this is all just a storm in a teacup, that Azerbaijan got luckier than it maybe predicted in New Caledonia.

On the other hand, it could be the birth of something much more poisonous: a bigger, nastier rivalry, born out of a messy new era of geopolitics in the South Caucasus — an era in which Russia is in retreat, Nagorno-Karabakh has fallen, and a triumphant Baku is on the march. It may not be quite as major as the rivalry between the West and Russia, or America and China, but the growing enmity between France and Azerbaijan is worth paying attention to.

Sources

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