THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR ABOUT THE SCANDAL WITH VOLEN SIDEROV

9 January 2014

“The scandal with Volen Siderov will not affect the Bulgarian-French relations”, stated the Ambassador of France to Bulgaria, H.E. Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes, in an interview for the Bulgarian National Television’s morning programme ‘The Day Begins’.

According to him, in this situation it would be normal Siderov to apologise: “I understand that when people are irritated and nervous they happen to swear or insult other people, but when they calm down and reconsider their actions, it would be normal to apologise". Neither him, nor Ms. Dumortier from the French embassy have been offered an apology.

The ambassador rejected the possibility the leader of “Ataka” to have been provoked by words of the French cultural attaché as she does not speak Bulgarian well. “The problem is she was threatened because she is French and because she is a member of the French embassy staff. She works in Varna…”– the ambassador said and remarked that Siderov said that in his capacity of an MP he had the right to check her identity. In the ambassador’s opinion this cannot be so because “MPs make laws, they are not policemen”, he added. Ambassador Lapeyre de Cabanes thinks that the problem with Ms. Dumortier was not as big as it was with other passengers on board of the aircraft.

Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes recalled that 20 years ago as a young diplomat when he was press attaché of the French embassy in Sofia, he had a meeting with Volen Siderov who at that time was the chief editor of “Demokratsiya” newspaper. (a newspaper associated with the Union of Democratic Forces, issued in the period 1990 - 2002). “I cannot remember exactly why, but after that meeting I decided I did not want to meet this person again.”

The French ambassador also said that in relation to the incident, the embassy received many letters in which people express their sympathy.

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