Dominique de Villepin, ex-prime minister of France under Chirac, mostly renowned for refusing the US pressure on France to join the Iraq war, has recently come out in an interview on a widely viewed M6 channel in France. In his commentary on foreign affairs and the role he sees France must take on the Palestinian question, he included a comparison of civilian deaths in Sudan and Gaza. In his laudable effort to shed light on Gaza, he inadvertently minimised what is described as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world at the moment in Sudan.
This is a trap, an obvious deflection technique used by bad-faith actors in a cheap whataboutism form to turn attention from the carnage in Gaza, with no sincerity in tackling either war, thus doing neither victims of these wars any justice.
A seasoned veteran diplomatic figure in French and foreign affairs such as Dominique De Villepin must not fall into such easy setups, while equally according the Sudan war the just and accurate narrative and attention it deserves.
A branding problem ?
The packaging and communication on the Sudan war has been hairy since April 2023 when both warring factions, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Hemedti and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Burhan. Terms describing the war as “war between two generals”, or most commonly used “civil war” is employed in coverage, as de Villepin did during the interview. The Sudanese people do not identify either of these terms as an accurate depiction of the scale, intensity, and longevity of this war that is in fact viewed as a calculated counter-revolutionary war attempt to steal power by both generals to pull the rug from the largely independent, secular, mostly young highly-educated civilian-led coalitions that successfully toppled the corrupt Bashir regime in the 2019 peaceful uprising. The latest description after over two and half years of war, the term “proxy extractionist war” is closer to the reality on the ground.
French and international intellectuals and journalists must have the bandwidth necessary to cover Sudan without the need to plug both wars together in a comparison contest.
Same suffering, different wars
The Palestinian cause remains the mother of all causes across the Middle East: even displaced Sudanese women have been seen praying for Palestinian women and mothers, as both wars rage simultaneously to alarming levels. Siege, orchestrated famine, humanitarian emergency, and annihilation campaigns—there is no doubt that Sudan, particularly El-Fasher for over a year, and Gaza share the same human consequences of senseless violence.
At the time of writing, a young woman named Gisma Ali Omar was lynched in El-Fasher by a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militiaman who filmed the act. Less than a week later, a mosque was bombed at dawn by the same forces, killing civilians and leaving many trapped under the rubble. The atrocities seem endless—and tragically familiar.
Within French public debate, comparing Gaza and Sudan through statistics is pointless. Gaza is a small, besieged, and occupied territory, one of the most densely populated in the world, with nearly half its residents under 14. Sudan, even after losing South Sudan in 2011, remains the third-largest country in Africa. The sheer geographical and demographic contrast alone makes any statistical comparison superficial and unworthy.
From Russia With No Love
With France’s retreat from the Sahel—partly due to the presence of Russian mercenaries— the Sudanese view Moscow’s growing involvement in Sudan and Chad with deep suspicion. Through its partnership with the RSF in gold smuggling, Russia has secured access to mines controlled by these militias, providing the Kremlin with a cash flow capable of cushioning the impact of international sanctions. At the same time, Moscow is seeking a foothold on the Red Sea: whether through an alliance with the RSF or the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), it is playing both sides to achieve this strategic objective.
The United Arab Emirates
Playing as a soft regional power, the UAE created an air of legitimacy of Janjaweed/RSF war criminal Hemedti to that of a statesman. This alliance dates to the war in Yemen where Sudanese RSF militia men were sent to fight some else’s war, under the approval of the previously toppled regime and SAF general Al-Burhan.
Hemedti was irresistible to the UAE due to his control of gold mines, a commodity in high global demand, with soaring prices, with a strategic global trading hub and market in Dubai. The Swiss Aid NGO refers to soaring gold as a “major redefining factor in Africa’s geopolitical role in global markets”. It is no surprise that Swiss organisations watch the events in Sudan closely, as Switzerland is the European and global hub for gold refinery, and the location where negotiations took place this last summer with US officials and warring Sudanese parties. Sudan is Africa’s third largest gold exporter.
The United States
This spring, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.-51), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Africa, reintroduced the Stand Up for Sudan Act, which would prohibit U.S. arms sales until the UAE is no longer providing material support to the RSF in Sudan.
In addition to the UAE re-exporting Chinese weapons into Sudan, the cooperation between the UAE strategically playing Russian and US alliances to serve its influence and wars in the region, is both under-studied, and under-reported. This phenomenon is not evident elsewhere as much as in Sudan.
The list of other foreign actors on both warring factions is long, and includes other competing regional powers such as Iran, Turkey, Egypt, or even Israel in supplying spyware to the RSF over a year before the war broke out, or private Colombian mercenaries with ties to the UAE, as many reports also expose their involvement in the Yemen war. Not to mention Ukrainian and Russian military groups fought in Sudan while switching alliances along both lines.
Every Sudanese, either in Sudan, or displaced, or in the diaspora, sees a mini-world war in Sudan - one of Africa’s largest, most strategic countries.
This seems as a repeated playbook and a blueprint for a new age and business model of subcontracted, locally-driven, militia-mercenary led warfare, providing fuel while maintaining distance and plausible deniability—despite clear tracks of financial and logistics networks proving complicity in Sudan's rivers of blood.
The French touch
Rather than comparing wars or human suffering, attention and pressure must be applied where needed to bring all these wars to a screeching halt, starting with arms and funds.
France needs attention and action to address Amnesty reports of its defense technologies in the hands of criminal RSF militia, incorporated into armoured personnel carriers made by the UAE.
The same reports highlights the increasing defense trade between France and the UAE with delivering an estimated worth of EUR €2.6 billion in military equipment to the UAE between 2014 and 2023. The war is Sudan, another grave human rights catastrophe, is enough to relook this alliance and its legal, moral and human rights implications on France.
One genocide may hide another
Europe’s effort to curb migration from Africa led to band-aid quick-fix measures, that included an alliance with the RSF group known to have committed a documented genocide in Darfur in 2003 (a period when there was no lack of media coverage on Sudan before secession of the south) and fueling another since over two years. These measures are irresponsible and do not provide a root-cause approach to ensuring peace and long-term stability both in Africa and Europe.
Recently more figures from the far-right, such as the controversial British figure Tommy Robinson have taken a sudden, suspicious interest in Sudan, for reasons yet to be investigated and closely observed. The radio silence in reporting on Sudan, with a sudden uptick in whataboutist comparisons, or now far-right rhetoric, should be cause for concern.
Dominique de Villepin is right in critiquing this weakened international image of France. These grave human rights violations happening at the same time must drive France to step up, improve its bandwidth, and reclaim what’s left of France’s authentic position as the country of the declaration of human rights. Pressure must be applied against this new age of impunity, while amplifying young, independent Sudanese voices to report without yielding the topic as a cudgel to deflect from other equally horrific violations elsewhere.
About the Author:
Taiseer Khalil is a French citizen with Sudanese origins, previously elected as deputy Member of Parliament at the French National Assembly from 2022 to 2024 in an independent seat representing the 2nd constituency of the Finistère Département in Brittany. She teaches International Commerce and Relations, Intercultural Management in universities, business and engineering schools across Brittany and Paris. Taiseer joined the first parliamentary delegation visit to the Gaza border calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in February 2024.