Of Alberto Negri

Source: Alberto Negri

Coincidences that perhaps aren't coincidences. Two days ago Gaddafi's son Seif Islam _ hit by an international arrest warrant _ announced his intention to run for the presidential elections in Libya scheduled for this year and now the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is arrested in Nanterre for financing his election campaign in 2007 with the suspicion that it was supported by Libyan funds.

He first French Edouard Philippe recommends "prudence and respect" in dealing with this matter not so much out of solidarity with the former president but because the real reasons that pushed Sarkozy to attack Gaddafi in 2011 dragging Great Britain and the United States into the disintegration of Italy's major ally in the Mediterranean. The worst Italian defeat since the Second World War which cost billions, hundreds of thousands of refugees and revolutionized with the topic of immigration and security, dominant in the election campaign, the internal political framework.

Bechir Saleh defends himself claiming to be only a patriot, in reality he moves very carefully and does not abandon his South African exile, perhaps because he does not want to end up like his friend Choukry Ghanim, the former Libyan oil minister found dead in 2012 at the bottom of the Danube in Vienna. But let's get to the context of the story, the war in Libya, the real reason why the Sarkozy case can be very annoying for Emmanuel Macron's France.

Sarkozy's France, like Blair's Great Britain, they had aimed to strengthen economic and strategic ties with Gaddafi. Seif Islam had a leading role: he was received at Buckingham Palace, in Paris, in Washington and even financed the London School of Economics, as well as obviously managing Libyan funds on international markets. The France, just to ingratiate themselves with the Libyan leaders, he had even offered Tripoli the sale of nuclear power plants, very sensitive topic for Gaddafi who had renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2004 so as not to end up like Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The main objective of the French it was to supplant Italy and Eni which had about two thirds of the concessions on Libyan oil. The months preceding the anti-Gaddafi uprising in Benghazi in February 2011 _ where the establishment intellectual Bernard Henry Levy will make his parade _ are very important to understand France's maneuvers. Sarkozy sees the goal of bringing Gaddafi to his side disappear when the 30 August 2010 Gaddafi is received in Rome with great pomp: in practice the sealing of contracts for 50 billions of dollars, the blocking of illegal immigration and a leading role in the country for Italy.

Sarkozy, already worried then for rumors about Libyan financing of his election campaign, decides to play the Libyan game to the end. In the autumn the Libyan Foreign Minister goes to Paris, In Mussa Kou, who will then defect to the English, then Nouri Mesmari arrives in the French capital, Colonel Gaddafi's chief of protocol, that the 16 November at the Hotel Concorde Lafayette in Paris he met some close collaborators of French President Sarkozy. Shortly afterwards a French trade delegation leaves for Benghazi, strengthened by men from the services. I1 23 December more Libyans arrive in Paris, sono Farj Charrant, Fathi Boukhris and Ounes Mansouri who the 17 February they will be among the leaders of the Benghazi revolt against the colonel's militiamen.

An email sent on 2 April 2001 from American official Sidney Blumenthal to then secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with the eloquent title “France’s client & Qaddafi’s gold”, tells the background of the Franco-British intervention. The French government, scrive Blumenthal, he organized the anti-Gaddafi factions by initially feeding the coup leaders with weapons, money, militia trainers (even those suspected of links to Al-Qaeda), intelligence and special forces on the ground. The reasons for Sarkozy's action are above all economic and geopolitical and the American official summarizes them in 5 points:
1 Sarkozy's desire to obtain a greater share of Libya's oil to the detriment of Italy
2.Increase France's influence in North Africa
3.Improve Sarkozy's domestic political position
4.Give the military an opportunity to reassert France's position as a world power
5.Address his advisors' concerns about Gaddafi's plans to supplant France as a power

Gaddafi's reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold and a similar quantity of silver”, posed a serious threat to the French CFA Franc, the main African currency adopts from 14 Countries that pay 80% of their reserves to the Paris Treasury. Libya's accumulated gold could be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan dinar. Added to these geopolitical and economic motivations is a personal one. For Sarkozy, eliminating Gaddafi meant eliminating the Arab leader who could frame him for electoral financing.

This is why today the investigation into Sarkozy it's not just about a retired leader but about the motivations of a conflict that has shattered an entire country and put Italy on the ropes, forced to bomb Gaddafi otherwise NATO would have hit Eni's terminals. A hot topic in the hands of the judges and goes far beyond the personal case of the former president.