Promotion Campaigns by UAE France Middleman Reflects Result

The Middle East has recently been rotating faster than all the other regions, where the countries are indulged in a constant contest to be ahead of each other. The reflection of this struggle has shown most evident signs on the United Arab Emirates, a deeply conservative nation that is using shells of modernism to conceal its reality.

Extensive shift in policies to match the western world, massively spending on the infrastructure, and taking additional measures to improve diplomatic relations, the Emirates has been doing it all to market itself internationally. One of its crucial targets has been France, which is steadily making its space in the list of the Arab nation’s partners.

While the two countries are mending their relationship route, a Franco-Tunisian businessman has been mediating on behalf of the UAE. Elyes Ben Chedly has been the man behind the Gulf countries’ duality of the diplomatic-military strategy. Moving as per the plan, Ben Chedly — a man of networks — put it all to promote two of the UAE’s crucial campaigns in France.

The Emirates celebrated 2019 as the “Year of Tolerance”, a campaign under which a reception for Pope Francis was hosted. Although it was a significant campaign for the UAE, promoting it to whitewash the country’s image was apparently the primary target. The campaign was relayed by Ben Chedly in France. For months, promotional posters praising the Emirates “tolerance” were seen at several places in France, including newsstands, billboards, airports and buses.

Reports revealed that the promotion was because of a contract signed between an advertising giant, JCDecaux, and Udaipur FZE, Ben Chedly’s firm registered in the tax haven of Ras Al Khaimah. In the cultural strategy of the Emirates, Ben Chedly also assisted the Arab nation in promotion of the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum, which inaugurated in 2017.

Ben Chedly organized a program called “year Zayed” in Paris. It included a full-page advertising campaign in the press, with slogan, “From the desert of the Emirates to the lights of the Louvre”.

The businessman also used his network of arms contracts, where he was also a mediator between a Bulgarian company, Hartford International Group, and a renowned supplier of armed forces in the UAE, International Golden Group (IGG). Chedly was to seek out opportunities for Hartford with IGG, but the scheduled deal was cancelled.

The Emirates has stayed connected to several countries due to the dealings in arms. Even with France, the campaign promotions have been a secondary benefit. The UAE has primarily been interested in the country for arms.

In November 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit to the UAE and returned after pledging a multibillion-euro arms deal. Under the contract, France announced to provide the Arab nation with 80 upgraded Rafale warplanes worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) and 12 Airbus-built combat helicopters.

France and the mediators working for the Emirates’ benefit have been neglecting the UAE’s congenital brutality. All the individuals, institutions and the countries that extend their hands towards the UAE are deliberately or accidentally stepping on the rights of many who are already crushing under the Emirates’ oppressive existence.