RIYADH (Dispatches) — French President Emmanuel Macron met Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman on Saturday for the final leg of a two-day Persian Gulf tour.
The two met in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, where the kingdom is in the midst of hosting a weekend of festivities. A series of events showcase the new non-oil sectors of entertainment, sports and tourism, with the first ever Formula One race and a pop concert by Justin Bieber, despite calls by rights groups for a boycott.
It’s the latest push by the young crown prince to showcase the purported social reforms he’s pushed for. Simultaneously, though, the prince has also spearheaded a pervasive crackdown on human rights activists and critics, culminating in the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018 in Turkey, an operation that stained the prince’s reputation abroad.
Ahead of Macron’s trip to Jiddah, a Lebanese minister who had criticized the Saudi war on Yemen resigned from government Friday.
“I think that this resignation has made it possible to relaunch the possibility of discussions, especially with Saudi Arabia,” Macron told reporters in Qatar.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking official said the resignation became inevitable earlier this week when Kordahi met Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
“Macron told Mikati before visiting the Persian Gulf: ‘If you want me to talk about Lebanon when I’m there, you’ve got to give me something’,” the official said. “He didn’t say what but Mikati understood.”
During Macron’s visit to the UAE on Friday, France announced the UAE is buying 80 upgraded Rafale warplanes in a deal worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) and represents the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. The deal faced criticism by human rights groups concerned about the UAE’s involvement in the war in Yemen.
Macron’s visit to Saudi Arabia came less than a day after 18 people were killed and several others injured in Saudi airstrikes on a residential area in Yemen’s southwestern Ta’izz province.
“We condemn the move by the French president, who - through his trip to Saudi Arabia - caused the killing of civilians and children in Ta’izz’s Muqbana district,” Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, tweeted.
“We remind him that his requests to European countries to continue selling arms to the aggressor Saudi coalition, in which he also participates, amount to war crimes in Yemen.”
The deadly aggression occurred on Friday evening, when Saudi warplanes targeted a gathering of civilians in the Muqbana district of the province, Yemen’s Al-Masirah television reported.
According to the network, the aircraft continued to fly over the crowd after the bombing, which prevented paramedics from reaching the scene to attend to the wounded.
Macron, nevertheless, defended his decision to visit Saudi Arabia during his Persian Gulf tour, saying he was acting “for our country and in the interests of the region”.

“Whatever strategic interest France has in Saudi Arabia, nothing can justify their legitimization of a ruler who kills journalists, threatens activists, imprisons women human rights defenders, slaughters Yemeni civilians, and deceives the international community. Macron diminishes himself and his own country as he stoops to partnership with MBS,” said Agnes Callamard, a French national who serves as Amnesty International’s secretary general.
France is one of Saudi Arabia’s main arms suppliers, but it has faced increasing pressure to review its sales because of the Saudi war on Yemen, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Speaking to reporters in Dubai on Friday, Macron rejected accusations that he was legitimizing the crown prince, claiming that the region’s multiple crises could not be dealt with by ignoring the kingdom.
A business delegation of about 100 companies, including TotalEnergies, EDF, Thales and Vivendi, was due to attend an investment forum during Macron’s trip, Reuters reported.
Macron’s visit comes at a time when Persian Gulf Arab states have voiced uncertainty about the U.S. focus on the region even as they seek more weapons from Washington.
Despite calling for an end to the Yemen conflict, the U.S. approved the sale of 280 AIM-120C air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia in November, in a deal valued at potentially $650 million.
When the State Department approved the sale, a spokesman said it was “fully consistent with the administration’s pledge to lead with diplomacy to end the conflict in Yemen”.
The trips were seen as an effort by the French leader to boost Europe’s presence in the region at a time when the U.S. is allegedly reducing its own role in the Middle East.
Macron and Prince Muhammad are both firm opponents of Islam. The French leader has sided with Arab leaders who restrict political freedoms but say they are combating pro-Islam groups.
In 2020, he rolled out the red carpet for Khalifa Haftar in Paris, conferring a degree of legitimacy on the Libyan warlord. That same year, he awarded the French Legion of Honor to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who’s been accused by rights activists of using counter-terrorist legislation to suppress peaceful dissent.