“France's biased and pro-Armenian stance on the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia causes discontent and concern in the Azerbaijani public and the country’s journalistic community. It is only natural that this discontent manifests itself in various media publications and social network profiles of individual people," said a statement issued by the Press Council, Ednews informs.
"Unfortunately, certain media outlets of the world add a special touch to the issue by giving irrelevant content to the Azerbaijani society's rightful protests against France's lop-sided and biased position, targeting the state of Azerbaijan and attempting to create a negative international opinion against our republic as a whole. The circulation of the latest publication by France's anti-disinformation group in the Western media is also indicative of this kind of malicious intent,” it added.
The statement underlined that according to Reuters, the mentioned group has identified an Azerbaijani among those in favor of boycotting the Olympic Games due to be held in Paris in 2024:
"That person condemned France on his profile on a social network and said that it is unacceptable for the Olympic Games to be held in a country where human rights are being violated. Against the backdrop of growing dissatisfaction with France's policy on a global scale, it is incomprehensible why this organization prefers to focus only on Azerbaijan, which is an indication of an extremely simplistic approach.
"First of all, everyone has the right to freely express their opinions on social networks. Secondly, in the current era of globalization, it is not people's and nation's issues but those of the individual, including the dissemination of user thoughts and views, that are relevant on social networks. If there is anything that runs counter to the rules in such opinions, it is the exclusive right of social networks to investigate and take appropriate action. Thirdly, the attempt to associate the views shared by an ordinary social network user with a state, in this case with the state of Azerbaijan, is a very unprofessional and simplistic approach. This is further evidence of the fact that the French organization in question is also a tool of biased propaganda against our country.
"It is also worth mentioning that it is already clear to everyone that the driving force behind the continuous and consistent campaign of the French media, which is conducting a biased and ugly campaign against Azerbaijan, is the French state. The country's influential media outlets do not even conceal that they receive such instructions from the Elysee Palace. It seems obvious that by taking such steps, the French state is trying to overshadow its failures in domestic and foreign policies, xenophobia and anti-Semitic trends prevailing in the country, the increasingly strong manifestations of racism, the increase in human rights violations, as well as the consequences of its neo-colonialist policy. France, which is fueling, financing, and arming Armenian adventurism in the South Caucasus, probably thinks that it is dressing up its activities in the guise of globalism, but is actually transferring the policy of neo-colonialism to yet another region and creating new sources of conflict there. Therefore, the targeting of Azerbaijan and the promotion of biased views about our country in various media outlets create an extremely poor image of the French state.
"The Press Council of Azerbaijan strongly condemns such negative tendencies and calls on the world media to refrain from participating in the propaganda campaign against Azerbaijan, remain sensitive, refrain from disseminating disinformation about Azerbaijan, circulate inaccurate and unconfirmed issues, and pay attention to the real truth.”
