Afghan Expulsions: Paris Ready to Hand Its Embassy to the Taliban

According to Le Figaro, in an account published on 6 November, Western countries are accelerating the expulsion of Afghans present on their soil. The price, sometimes: diplomatic victories granted to a theocracy they do not officially recognise. The paper's headline goes further: Paris could hand the Afghan embassy over to the Taliban. That is what we know. The rest of the dispatch is thin: no timetable, no quantified quid pro quo, no detail on what Kabul would precisely obtain. We will not invent it.

Which leaves the question that matters: cui bono?

First, the governments. Expulsion has become a political currency. Every flight to Kabul sells at home as proof of firmness. Never mind that the destination is run by a regime these same capitals denounce. "Non-recognition" is a convenient fiction: you don't shake the hand, you hand over the keys. Our reading: the state is not doing morality here, it is managing a legitimacy problem with its electorate and sacrificing its professed principles.

Next, the Taliban. They do not need to win recognition; it is being sold to them by the slice. An embassy is a counter, passports, a flag, a status. Each concession is a step towards normalisation, obtained without giving up anything on their regime. The powers that denounce the theocracy reinforce it, whenever it suits their migration arithmetic.

One can read this in the light of what Lenin said about the state: an instrument in the service of the ruling class, equipped with an apparatus (police, administration, diplomacy) that sits above society. The Afghans being expelled count for nothing in that apparatus. Their fate is bargained over between chancelleries, without them. Foreign labour is welcomed when the market wants it and chased out when the political climate demands it. A buffer, in short.

There is also the imperial dimension. Afghanistan was occupied for twenty years by NATO armies in the name of democracy and women's rights. The "rules-based order" is now back with deportation lists and a stamp of legitimacy for its former adversaries. Powers compete for influence, routes and markets; this region has been a central theatre of that rivalry. Today each negotiates separately with Kabul. Without a common plan, bidding wars are guaranteed, and the most generous in concessions gets its flights.

What the dispatch does not say, and what must be demanded: what guarantees for those sent back, what exact quid pro quo, what legal framework. People are being handed over to a regime whose nature is well known. No joking about that.

The moral of the story is colder. A state that claims to defend values trades them for a number of expulsions. This is not a betrayal of its operating logic. It is its operating logic.