Archives de l’étiquette : Sail Training Association France

Analyse rhétorique du président de l’association « Les Amis des Grands Voiliers — Sail Training Association France » concernant le navire russe « Shtandart » sous sanctions.

Une lettre de Michel Balique, président de l’organisation Les Amis des Grands Voiliers — Sail Training Association France, datée du 3 janvier 2025, fournit un résumé remarquable de la rhétorique utilisée contre les militants qui s’opposent au non-respect des sanctions par le navire russe Shtandart au cours des trois dernières années.

A rhetorical analysis of the president of the ‘Les Amis des Grands Voiliers — Sail Training Association France’ in relation to the sanctioned Russian ship, ‘Shtandart’.

Dated 3 January 2025, a letter from Michel Balique, president of Les Amis des Grands Voiliers — Sail Training Association France, provides a remarkable summary of the rhetoric used against activists opposing the Russian ship Shtandart’s failure to comply with sanctions over the past three years.

How did « Les Amis des Grands Voiliers – Sail Training Association France » deviate from its mandate and damage its reputation by promoting an illicit circumvention of EU sanctions ?

Michel Balique ridiculed and discredited Les Amis des Grands Voiliers primarily by converting its platform into a pro‑Shtandart lobbying machine, repeatedly dodging substantive legal critique, and replacing it with rhetorical excess and personal invective. The result, according to critics, was to tarnish the association’s founders’ intentions and academic legitimacy, presenting it as complicit in illicit circumvention of EU sanctions.

Why did Michel Balique, president of ‘Friends of tall ships’ association, become collateral damage to the Russian vessel ‘Shtandart’?

Michel Balique, president of the Amis des grands voiliers – Sail Training Association France, is one of the two main French lobbyists for the Russian vessel Shtandart, which became a violation of European regulations on 16 April 2022, the date of application of the 5th round of the European sanctions imposed following the Bucha massacres. This activism on behalf of Russian interests has ruined his digital image, i.e. his reputation, and that of the association he chairs.