Afghanistan – Statement by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs spokesperson (15 August 2024)

Three years after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, France reaffirms its commitment to using all the levers at its disposal to bring about an improvement in the lot of the Afghan people in an ever-worsening humanitarian and economic context. Through its serious, repeated human-rights violations, the Taliban is not complying with the clear obligations it was set by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2593 of 2021, which France will continue to denounce.

France also reiterates its utter condemnation of the Taliban’s intolerable violations of women’s and girls’ rights. The decision taken in December 2022 to ban women from going to university or working for NGOs is unacceptable and unjustifiable. We repeat that no return to normal can be envisaged without a halt to the violence and the threats against women, and a lifting of these restrictions. By erasing women from Afghan society and thereby excluding half the country’s population from public and economic life, these serious infringements make the country’s development in any kind of way impossible.

France continues to support the Afghan people with concrete humanitarian projects run by United Nations agencies and programmes and NGOs on the ground, in the areas of education and health, and to help Afghan women and girls. France will remain committed.