Emmanuel Macron will go to Abu Dhabi on Sunday to pay tribute to the president of the United Arab Emirates, Cheikh Khalifa ben Zayed al-Nahyane.
Le Monde with AFP
The crown prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed Ben Zayed, already considered the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, was elected on Saturday May 14, president of the rich Gulf monarchy, succeeding his half-brother, Khalifa Ben Zayed Al Nahyane, died Friday at the age of 73. Mohammed Ben Zayed, known as “Mbz”, was elected by the Supreme Council of the Federation of Emirates, said the official news agency Wam.
French President Emmanuel Macron will go to Abu Dhabi on Sunday to pay tribute to the president of the United Arab Emirates, Cheikh Khalifa Ben Zayed al-Nahyane, the Elysée announced on Saturday. Consequence: Prime Minister Jean Castex will not go to the Vatican as expected, the two chiefs of the executive cannot be outside the territory at the same time, said Matignon.
The French head of state intends to “express his support for his brother the crown prince of Abu Dabi, Sheikh Mohammed Ben Zayed al-Nayane, as well as to the rest of the family and to all the Emirian people”, said the presidency. Emmanuel Macron spoke Friday with Cheikh Mohammed, known as Mbz, half-brother of the deceased.
The government of this Gulf country decreed on Friday “an official mourning and the flags put at half mast” for a period of forty days. The portrait of the deceased president, rarely seen in public since the stroke of which he was the victim in January 2014, was immediately displayed everywhere in the streets, institutions and even the hotels of the emirate. Local media have also interrupted their programs to broadcast images and articles paying homage to it.
Economic development
Born in September 1948, Khalifa Ben Zayed Al Nahyane succeeded in 2004 to his father, Zayed Ben Sultan Al Nahyane, President and Founding Father of the United Arab Emirates, rich state of the Gulf bringing together seven emirates, including Dubai and the capital, Abou Dhabi.
After the establishment of the Federation, in 1971, Khalifa Ben Zayed was appointed Vice-Prime Minister, and then presided over the Superior Petroleum Council, an organization with large powers in the energy field.
Under the mandate of Khalifa Ben Zayed, the Emirates experienced a rapid economic boom, carried by the oil wealth of Abu Dhabi, which concentrates 90 % of the reserves of the Federation, and the assertion of Dubai as a finance center , luxurious tourist destination or aircraft of air transport. But, like its president, the Emirates remained relatively discreet on the international scene, generally storing behind its great ally, Saudi Arabia, mastodon of the Gulf and the Arab world, of which it remains the first economy.
According to observers, it is under the impulse of Prince Mohammed Ben Zayed that the country gradually came out of its usual discretion, in particular since the 2010s, and has gained growing influence in the Middle East and Africa . Abu Dhabi even participates in military interventions against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, then in Yemen, alongside the Saudis, to fight the Houthist rebels, close to Iran.