Last Sunday, after the victory of Montpellier Hérault SC on the pitch of FC Lorient (0-3), Michel Der Zakarian put football aside for a while to talk about a much more serious subject: the offensive of Azerbaijan in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, with an Armenian majority. “I wanted to wink to all the Armenians who are suffering in Nagorno-Karabakh. I hope they are well and I hug them very much,” he declared in the press room at the Moustoir stadium.
Subsequently, the Paillade coach explained his speech. “It was not to promote myself but to say things. France must move even though I saw that they are going to lend a hand. We must help them,” he said in comments reported by Le Midi Libre, referring to recent statements by the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, who assured this Tuesday that “France has given its agreement to the conclusion of future contracts with Armenia which will allow the delivery of military equipment […] so that it can ensure its defense.
If he felt the need to talk about it, it is because he is personally concerned by the events taking place there. “I was born there [in Armenia, editor’s note], I have Armenian blood. My parents lived there. My grandparents fled before them during the genocide. They killed, slit everyone’s throats…” confided the man who wore the Armenian national team jersey five times.
“I’m touched. I see no one is talking about it. Whether it is the Turks or the Azerbaijanis, they want to carry out genocide again. If we let this happen, many Armenians will die,” he warned, recalling the mass massacre that Armenia suffered between 1915 and 1923. As a reminder, at the end of September, Hasmik Tolmajian, the Armenian ambassador to France denounced “ethnic cleansing” on France Info. “This land, today, is in the process of being completely emptied of its Armenian population,” she said.