Why France 24 ignore Ukraine?

Why does the French TV channel France 24 ignore Ukraine while other world channels do not?

The whole story began when the author of this article complained about politics of the French satellite channel France 24 not showing Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine in its weather report. After two weeks of emailing (one- way mailing actually), France 24 neither responded nor changed such a discriminatory politics.

Nowadays when our entire world is shaken by regional conflicts, floods, forest fires and epidemics it can seem ridiculous to talk about “weather injustice”. Nevertheless, somebody should talk and that somebody is me, simple Mozambican–Ukrainian blogger, very upset with the politics of weather forecast of the French TV channel France 24.

As an international TV watcher, what did I see, when France 24 showed its weather forecast for Eastern Europe? All the time there appear only three cities: Moscow, Minsk and Bucharest. Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, never appeared on our screen.

Well, currently I started to do some geopolitical conjunction. Like this: why Moscow? It’s simple, I guess: the capital of a big country, the G-8 member and the UN Security Council (undermining I’m pretty sure that France would like to see Russia as a balancing power that can face actual supremacy of the United States, old French “enemy of estimation”.

The second is Bucharest. Newcomer to the European Union, Romania is a country with proudly European inspiration but always keeping pity of special respect for Paris (vision of Bucharest as a Paris of the Eastern Europe still can be observed in a collective sub conscience of the elite of this country).

Minsk is the weakest link. It’s the capital of relatively small country ruled by the last dictator in Europe. A country where Soviet-style socialism still finds its victims among free journalists, students, opposition politicians and businessmen that is unhappy to serve interests of totalitarian state.
But for some strange reason France 24 welcomes this capital and this country. Why? Trying to understand this point we should return to the geopolitical way of thinking. Belarus is a pro-Russian and definitively anti-US country. That is, enemy of my enemy is my friend. Even, and we say that before, if this only enemy is enemy of our estimation. Also keep in mind French habits to do right things by using wrong ways (like liberate people from inhumane suffering selling the weapons in return). In this last sentence I was trying to say in a poetical way that France shows respect for Belarus not just to maintain a balance with the United States, but to show some support for process of unpuppetization of Aljaksandar Lukašenka from his Kremlin masters.

Finally, Kyiv. A capital that never apears on France 24 weather forecast (to be honest, last mid-week just after beginning of this campaign the France 24 finally has mentioned Ukraine but still has never shown its capital. We are still in the middle of the weather battle).

So Kyiv, also known as Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, country that claimed (well, not alone) to accommodate a geographical center of Europe. Ukraine has almost the same area as France. Its population is a bit smaller than that of the 5-th Republic but still much bigger than Belarus and Romania together.

What is a problem between France 24 and Ukraine / Kyiv? Why Ukrainian capital doesn’t appear on channel’s weather forecast?

Personally I feel that the Orange Revolution which opened Ukraine to the West, same Revolution stepped forward to attract more tourists from Europe and to provide ways to join European Union in the next future, are being seen by some folks in Paris as a treat. Some French circles see new Ukrainian project for democracy basically as an “American project”. They have so many disagreements (Iraq, relationships with USA, etc) with relatively small Baltic States that they probably don’t want to have some sort of trouble with country that in future can stay shoulder by shoulder with them (even if in the past, Ukraine gave to France the Queen – Anne of Kyiv and some politicians, like Pierre E. Bérégovoy).
Finally, how will this difference between the channel and Ukraine end? I don’t know. I just know that I will be knocking in the closed doors of the France 24 until they open and until the name of a Kyiv appears in their weather report.

Design: Dmytro Slavov (USIM)