Natasha Niebieskikwiat
10/16/2020 10:47 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 10/16/2020 3:33 PM
Alberto Fernández and
Emmanuel Macron
spoke this Friday morning.
It was a telephone dialogue that lasted an hour and a half.
They spoke of French support for Argentina in the face of the debt negotiations with the IMF, of the human rights violations in Venezuela, of the presidential elections in Bolivia and of the coronavirus that plagues the two countries.
It was one of several communications that both maintained, within the framework of an alliance that they began to build when the Argentine president visited the Frenchman last February, a month before the world went into quarantine to stop the coronavirus pandemic.
The conversation began at 11 in the morning and
Jorge Luis Borges
did not miss
the conversation since Macron was happy with the gift that the Argentine ambassador in Paris, Leonardo Costantino, sent him on behalf of Alberto F. It is about an original of Borges's manuscript for a book by Silvina Ocampo, published in 1970 by the emblematic French publisher Gallimard.
Due to Borges' blindness it was written and even signed by his mother, Leonor Acevedo.
Culture continues to unite France and Argentina.
Macron is a fan of it.
Presidents Alberto Fernández and Emmanuel Macron spoke this Friday by phone
The issue of the pandemic was a central axis of communication, as later transmitted by the Argentine Presidency.
Europe, and especially France, are experiencing a resurgence of the disease.
Macron ordered an unusual curfew in several cities in his country for weeks as a containment, which has generated further unpopularity for the president.
Argentina in turn went from being the countries that best faced the crisis to those that today face the highest levels of contagion and deaths by number of population after seven months of quarantine.
Macron asked Alberto F.
how the situation was being addressed.
"The president pointed out that the very strong initial quarantine gave us time to rebuild the public health system for good care and it has never been exceeded until today," the Argentine replied.
They both highlighted the importance of finding a vaccine.
"We want the vaccine to be shared not with Europeans as well, we must accelerate the search and we want it to be a global public good," Macron said, according to Argentine spokesmen.
Macron always gave his support to Argentina in the negotiations for the debt with the private bondholders and with the IMF.
"We are pleased with this new stage, it is very important to agree with the IMF and I am pleased that they are moving forward and we are
willing to help," they
said in the Rosada that Macron told Fernández.
Alberto F. thanked and praised the support in the negotiations with the IMF.
He also told the Frenchman that Argentina was in "a good level of conversation" with the IMF, with "a good level of conversation on how to face the future."
And that the country needed an agreement "that gives us time and allows us to grow again."
In order of communication, then came the Venezuela issue, where the French are implacable against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The Argentine communiqué says that "both dignitaries agreed in pointing out the need to find a democratic solution with full respect for human rights."
Fernández spoke in favor of the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, who denounced murders, torture and other human rights violations in the Caribbean country.
After twists and turns and the controversy over the words of the Argentine ambassador to the OAS, Carlos Raimundi, the Government condemned the Maduro regime at the UN, but not before the Lima Group - in which it is not even participating.
Fernández told Macron "we are united by the same interests; human rights, freedoms, the environment and the humanitarian side in the face of the pandemic."
Fernández did not miss the opportunity to ask Macron to "send electoral observers" to Bolivia, where the position of the two countries is different, since the national administration does not recognize the provisional government of Jeanine Añez, considering that it arose from a coup by State.
Fernández sheltered Evo Morales in December, and the former president organized the Movement for Socialism campaign in his country with great support from Argentina.
The telephone conversation lasted one hour, it took place from the fifth presidential office in Olivos and the president was accompanied by the chancellor, Felipe Solá, and the secretaries of Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Beliz, and the General of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello.
Witnesses to the talk said that they also talked about Mauricio Macri's last visit to Paris, last August, when a photo was taken with the French president.
They assured in Argentina that Macron said that this meeting had been "a request from FIFA", for whose foundation the former Argentine president works.
