French Foreign Ministry slams recent remarks by head of Wagner Group

By Umit Donmez

PARIS (AA) – France’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday denounced recent remarks by the head of Russian private military company Wagner Group, calling them “pipe dreams.”

Speaking at a news conference, Anne-Claire Legendre criticized Yevgeny Prigozhin's comments about France after the French parliament approved a resolution Tuesday calling on the government to officially designate Wagner as a "terrorist group."

Replying to a question by an Anadolu correspondent on the topic, she denounced Wagner's "plundering and predatory activities, also documented in UN reports, in some countries including the Central African Republic, Mali, and of course, Ukraine."

Violations committed by Wagner are "the fruits of a doctrine which seeks to establish a terror regime," and designating it as a terrorist organization is no taboo for the French Foreign Ministry, Legendre added.

"I will not comment on Prigozhin's remarks," she continued. "I think no one pays attention to those pipe dreams, which are so usual to him."

Prigozhin on Wednesday questioned the French authorities' criteria for classifying his organization as a "terrorist group,” claiming that it acts in the interests of official governments and protects people from terrorists.

He said the French parliament made its decision out of fear of the Wagner Group.

When his mercenaries arrived in the Central African Republic, French soldiers were raping 12-year-old girls, he alleged.

"We saved an entire country, saved tens of thousands of lives from bandits, terrorists and, most importantly, from the French, who simply abused them," he said.

*Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara