Regional Round-Up: Understanding the Fury Around Claudia Sheinbaum; Israel Thanks Mexico For Thwarting Assassination of Ambassador; France & Mexico Announce Expanded Cooperation; Remembering Florence Cassez

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio analyzes the latest news from the region, focusing on Mexico. 

To pick up on the story of militarization in Mexico, click here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2fPwob1rBbWNd66AJISAoG?si=_mwF6goFR7SWRuDiGMUVjA

Transcript

Hi everyone. Here’s another regional round-up, as there’s been a lot happening which is worth diving into. This time we’re going to focus exclusively on Mexico, as there have been a series of bizarre stories this week, or at least bizarre reactions to perhaps less-than-bizarre stories.

The first of these involves the President, Claudia Sheinbaum, having been groped by a drunk man on the street in Mexico City, all filmed, which to any woman who has been out in public in Mexico for any length of time, is no great surprise - Mexico remains a society built around machismo, and although much has changed in the last generation, catcalls, shouts, unwanted attention and way worse is sadly not uncommon. Sure, it’s less socially accepted than it used to be, but women-only carriages on the metro are there for a reason.

The fact that this happened to the President has been seen as an indication that if she is vulnerable, then what must other women suffer? Sheinbaum has said as much, and is pressing charges against her assailant, although this is more her making a public statement than personal retribution.

Some opposition politicians have accused her of staging the encounter, however, and others of making political capital from the event. What’s surprising here - yes, even bizarre - is the vitriol it has generated against her. Vitriol, which, to my mind, actually has very little to do with her, and everything to do with her party. Sheinbaum is a smart political operator, and one who has serious values and beliefs - which undoubtedly includes feminist politics and support for women. She is no career politician who sways in favour of the prevailing wind. She knows who she is and she is in politics to achieve a purpose, which is not standard operating procedure. But she is also president because she heads a party which is of the left, and has a core focus of lifting the working class out of poverty, but which is hardly progressive. Morena - her party, the party built in the shape of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador - is best understood as a leftist party of the seventies, industrially socialist - rather than progressively 21st century.

And there is where the vitriol comes in, I think, not because of what happened, or how she reacted, or whether it was made up or not, but because there is an inveterate, growing hatred of the hypocrisy of a woman who believes in women’s rights but leads a party that only pretends to. 

And it’s worth remembering too that the reason that the historical powerhouse party of Mexico’s 21st century, the PRI, is not in the wilderness just because it lost its way - although it certainly did as a political behemoth - but because most of those traditional male politicians who had been in the PRI all their lives, jumped ship to Morena. So what you have is a hugely principled woman leading a party full of individuals devoid of scruples and who will jump across parties at the first sign of convenience. 

The hatred is not that she doesn’t have principles, it’s that she chooses when to action them. 

Sheinbaum - and Morena - have had no real opposition to date, but things are changing, and the very same politicians - mostly male , mostly ex-PRI - whose presence gives her a mandate, are increasingly unable to shed the accusations that they have utterly realigned Mexico’s other two maps of power, business and organized crime, and have done so in brazen, corrupt manners. There is an arrogance to their behaviour which is generating real, deep fury in opposition circles. 

At least in the times of the PRI, would go the argument, the corruption was decorous, and hidden. Now all the mouths are at the trough, and faces are emerging stained, but nobody is embarrassed or ashamed. And Sheinbaum has demonstrated no appetite to address this naked corruption, corruption which also now has - in the military - its greatest, newest accomplice. 

We’ve covered this new militarization in the country before, but if you haven’t heard some of the coverage, or would like to go back and hear some of this again, there’s a link in the notes to a piece from September in which we dive into the topic. 

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The other surprise headline from the country this week involves the “thwarted” assassination by Iran of the Israeli Ambassador to Mexico. The claim was made by both the US and Israel, which thanked Mexico for stopping “a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador.” 

Mexico, for its part, said that it had no record or knowledge of an alleged plot, SUBTEXT - they didn’t do anything to stop a thing they knew nothing about. 

So what’s really going on here? Well, to my mind, arguing whether it was a real plot or not is missing the point. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Irrespective, Israel knows it has a problem with Latin America, and growing resentment and anger of what has happened in Gaza over the last two years, even among Jewish population, which is the 14th largest globally, and the third in Latin America after Argentina and Brazil. The Jewish community numbers an estimated 50,000 in Mexico, but, and this is a big BUT, people of Arab descent number in excess of 1 million. Collectively, Latin America has the biggest Jewish and Arab populations on earth, outside of the Middle East. 

Now, historically, relations between the two communities are cordial, and relatively uncontroversial but - again, whether it happened or not - this is clearly being taken as an opportunity to affect the narrative, and indicates the beginning of a PR campaign to generate sympathy for Israel, which we’ll undoubtedly see more of, both obviously and covertly. Again, your perspective on what is happening is relatively irrelevant. Simply - and uncontroversially - put, Israel knows it has an image problem, and is going to focus on shifting that perspective, probably elsewhere too, but certainly in Latin America, and Israel being Israel, it’s going to involve an arm twist rather than a romantic candle-lit supper. 

Iran, for its part, has denied the plot, and said it was a fabricated accusation designed to sour its relation with Mexico. Well, no surprise in that statement either. But in expanding the defence by saying that they would never betray the trust that the government of Mexico has placed in them, they are also admitting, just as Israel did, that Mexico is also an important battleground for them, politically and socially. 

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And finally, this week saw French President Emmanuel Macron visit Mexico, and President Claudia Sheinbaum, to announce expanded economic cooperation and cultural partnerships. Both leaders affirmed their shared histories, without specifying the French invasion of the 1860s, during which France invaded Mexico to collect debts and ultimately installed a quasi-monarchy led by Emperor Maximilian of Austria. 

Macron pointedly spoke of a relationship based on a mutual respect for international law and national sovereignty, and a belief in multilateralism. Needless to say that this all relates to an elephant in the room, and reflects Mexico’s interest in expanding new markets away from the USA, much as Canada is doing. Well, and Brazil, and Colombia, and the United Kingdom, and the European Union, etc etc. 

French companies and investment are currently responsible for approximately 150,000 direct jobs in Mexico, and 700,000 indirect jobs, which, interestingly, is less than the economic impact of jobs generated by organized crime, but that’s another story. Maybe at some point we can dive into those figures, what we think we know and what is probably true.

But the reason I bring this up - the Mexico-France agreement - is because about 15 years ago I had a lot of contact with the French authorities in Mexico, during the Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy in France, and it was an interesting period because it was in 2009 that Mexico cancelled its proposed cultural exchange programme, the “Year of Mexico in France”, and, in turn, France cancelled its “Year of France in Mexico.” It was all to do with the arrest and imprisonment of French national Florence Cassez, who had been arrested in 2005 on charges of assisting her boyfriend in the kidnapping of various businessmen from a hotel in Mexico City. Kidnapping being a severely punishable offence in Mexico, which historically has been plagued by the crime, sentenced her to 60 years in prison. 

The issue with France was that she was French, of course, that she was highly photogenic, and the face of a young French woman held behind bars in a maximum security Mexican prison didn’t play in France - as well as the fact that her conviction was thought to be unsafe due to problematic protocol during her arrest.

What happened was that the Mexican police found the ranch where the businessmen were being held, detained Cassez and her boyfriend, but realized that it was a coup for them, so held them all illegally until they then re-staged the arrest for local media, days later. It was an absolute mess. 

At the time, I was visiting the French Embassy regularly over an ongoing issue with the French military attache (whose dog was called Nelson, by the way, because he liked being able to tell Nelson to heel - his phrase, not mine), and so was party to a lot of the pique that was being felt by France at the time. 

Eventually, in 2013, Cassez was released into French custody and her sentence was commuted to the French equivalent, but was released on arrival in France. Cassez has always maintained her innocence, and her boyfriend remains in jail. 

Mexico and France today is a long, long way from the Mexico and France of Sarkozy (himself now in jail) and Felipe Calderon in 2009, and even further away from the Mexico and France of the 1860’s, of course. 

Goodnight!