ASSAULT OF FRENCH JOURNALIST IN TUNISIA PROMPTS MEDIA OUTCRY, DOMESTIC CRITICISM OF GOF HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 007777



SIPDIS



E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/7/2015

TAGS: PREL, PHUM, KDEM, TS, FR

SUBJECT: ASSAULT OF FRENCH JOURNALIST IN TUNISIA PROMPTS

MEDIA OUTCRY, DOMESTIC CRITICISM OF GOF HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY



REF: 03 PARIS 8954



Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reasons

1.4 (b) and (d).



1. (C) Summary: The November 11 assault of a French

journalist in Tunis by unknown assailants widely believed to

belong to the Tunisian security services has prompted an

outcry among French media, which has harshly criticized GoF

complacency on Tunisia's human rights situation, with some

leading dailies and opposition politicians calling for the

France to boycott the World Summit for the Information

Society (WSIS). The GoF response, meanwhile, has been

limited to cautious MFA statements calling for the Tunisian

government to shed light on the attack and respect freedom of

information. MFA contacts confirmed that the controversy

will not result in a GoF boycott of the WSIS, though the GoF

delegation head, currently Finance Minister Breton, may be

downgraded to a junior minister level, depending on the

degree to which the issue continues to generate domestic

controversy. MFA contacts privately expressed pessimism on

prospects for improvement in Tunisia's human rights situation

in the wake of the WSIS, and were similarly negative on the

likelihood of France taking a tougher stance on Tunisian

human rights, as long as Chirac remains president. End

summary.



2. (SBU) French media continues to report widely on the

attack on "Liberation" correspondent Christophe Boltanksi,

who was beaten and stabbed by four unknown assailants late

November 11 in Tunis, after having extensively reported on

human rights abuses on the eve of the GOT-hosted WSIS.

Several French newspapers, led by "Liberation," have

suggested that Boltanski's attack was perpetrated by Tunisian

security services, though the identities of the attackers

remain unknown and there is no definitive evidence.

Boltanski, who did not require hospitalization and returned

to France shortly after the attack, declared in press remarks

that his attackers took their time, stole his bag containing

interview notes, and were not stopped by the very heavy

police presence in the diplomatic quarter where the attack
<br />took place. Boltanksi dismissed the likelihood that the

attack was criminally motivated, noting that foreign

journalists in Tunisia are heavily monitored and that human

rights activists in Tunisia have faced similar attacks from

plain-clothes Tunisian security service officials. Follow-up

incidents of alleged GOT harassment of Belgian and Swiss

journalists and a French "TV 5" news crew in Tunis continued

to attract heavy French media coverage November 16.



3. (SBU) In a November 13 statement issued some 40 hours

after the Boltanski assault took place, the MFA declared, "We

have made it known to the Tunisian authorities, in Paris and

in Tunis, that we are counting on them to shed all light

possible on the attack..." In a follow-up statement November

15, FM Douste-Blazy called on the GOT to respect freedom of

information and not impede the work of journalists attending

the WSIS, without protesting the Boltanski assault.

"Liberation" November 14 decried the GoF's belated and mild

reaction to the Boltanski attack and recurring human rights

abuses in Tunisia, which it ascribed to longtime complacency

by President Chirac towards the human rights situation in

Tunisia, as a means of protecting French commercial and

strategic interests there. "Liberation" and several other

French dailies cited Chirac's widely reported comments during

a December 2003 visit to Tunisia (reftel),in which he

dismissed the concerns of protesting civil society activists

in Tunisia and described the right to food as paramount above

political liberties. "Liberation" concluded that the French

president had shown himself to be closer to Moscow and Havana

on human rights issues, than fellow Western democracies. A

November 15 "Le Monde" editorial went further in making

unfavorable comparisons between French and U.S. policy

towards Tunisia, noting that the U.S. had not hesitated to

call publicly for Tunisia to pursue political and human

rights reforms, while France "did not have such courage."

The "Le Monde" editorial concluded by calling on France to

abstain from attending the WSIS, or, at minimum, to pressure

Tunisia via the EU to comply with its EU association

agreement obligations, which remained a "dead letter."

Leaders of the opposition French Socialist party (PS) echoed

the call for a WSIS boycott and called on the GoF to issue an

"official protest" of the Boltanski assault.



4. (C) MFA Tunisia desk officer Christian Reigneaud told us

November 14 that the Boltanski attack would not affect GoF

participation in the WSIS, for which Minister of

Economy/Finance Thierry Breton would lead the French

delegation. In a follow-up discussion November 15, Reigneaud

was more cautious, and noted that the degree of French media

attention on the attack and consequent criticism of GoF human

rights policy was unprecedented. While Reigneaud affirmed

that a GoF boycott of the WSIS was out of the question, he

conceded that there was a slim possibility that the

delegation head might be downgraded to the junior minister

level, depending on the degree to which the issue continued

to generate controversy, especially during the weekly

audience by FM Douste-Blazy before the National Assembly

foreign relations committee November 15. Reigneaud commented

that the GoT had viewed the GoF decision to send Breton to

the WSIS as an "insult," given that the French PM had

attended the first WSIS summit and that Tunis had lobbied

unsuccessfully for Chirac's attendance.



5. (C) Reigneaud remained skeptical on prospects for finding

Boltanski's attackers or for any near-term improvement in

Tunisia's human rights situation in the aftermath of the

WSIS. While noting there was no evidence of GoT involvement

in the Boltanski assault, he mused that the GoT was effective

in covering up such matters. Stressing that he was

expressing personal views, Reigneaud speculated that the

modest gestures which Tunisia had made in the run-up to the

WSIS -- allowing access to banned websites, for instance --

would evaporate as soon as the WSIS had ended, with the GoT

likely to crack down on the hunger strikers as well. Pressed

for details on how the GoF was articulating its human rights

concerns to the GOT, Reigneaud offered few details. He noted

that the French embassy in Tunis, for the first time, had

received a representative of the eight hunger strikers

November 14, though the GoF had opted not to send any emboffs

to meet the hunger strikers themselves, which he said would

cross a "red line" for the GoF and provoke a crisis with the

GoT. Explaining the degree to which the GoF sought to

accommodate the GoT on human rights concerns, Reigneaud noted

that when French FM Douste-Blazy met with representatives of

the Tunisian League of Human Rights (LTDH) during a visit to

Tunis last October, the French MFA received a delegation of

pro-GOT LTDH members, as a quid pro quo requested by the GOT.



6. (C) Pressed to explain why the GoF could not speak more

forcefully with Tunisia on human rights, given the friendship

between the two countries, Reigneaud (protect) commented that

"everyone" in the MFA wanted to see the GoF take a more

activist stance on political repression in Tunisia, which was

entirely without justification, as a political opening posed

no risk to the stability of the GoT. On the contrary,

continued suppression of basic political liberties by the

GoT, out of step with Tunisia's economic success and educated

population, could spell trouble for Tunisia's long-term

stability and open the door to Islamist influence. Reigneaud

concluded, though, that, despite media criticism and the

preferences of working level MFA officials, GoF human rights

policy on Tunisia would remain unchanged as long as Chirac

remained President. In Reigneaud's view, the French leader's

ties with Ben Ali were too long-standing for the French

president to adopt a new approach.



7. (C) Comment: We view this controversy as indicative of the

degree to which President Chirac's "stability first" and

tradition of cultivating close relations with aging Arab

world dictators is increasingly out of step with current

realities and prevailing media opinion in France. While the

media focus on the Boltanski attack may subside in coming

days, we expect that the GoF will remain vulnerable to

further domestic criticism for inaction on human rights

issues in Tunisia -- as the MFA speculated, as long as Chirac

remains president. End comment.

Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:

http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Hofmann