From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

European Net Zero policies appear to have created a total dependency on imported fossil fuel.

DIPLOMACY & GEOPOLITICS

France Killed the Hormuz Vote. Its Ships Paid Iran to Cross the Same Day.

France co-vetoed the UN Hormuz resolution the same day CMA CGM paid Iran $2M in yuan to cross. How Iran’s sorting mechanism splits the Western coalition.

April 4, 2026

DUBAI — On April 3, 2026, France co-vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have authorised military force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — and on the same day, the Malta-flagged CMA CGM Kribi, owned by the world’s third-largest container shipping line, completed its transit of the Strait after coordinating directly with Iranian maritime authorities and paying a $2 million toll in Chinese yuan. No major outlet has connected these two events, which is remarkable, because they are the same event viewed from different altitudes: Paris chose commerce over coalition, and Tehran designed the system to make that choice inevitable.

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The sequence matters more than either event in isolation. Before entering Iranian territorial waters, the CMA CGM Kribi changed its AIS destination field to read “Owner France” — a deliberate signal to Iranian maritime authorities that the vessel belonged to a nation Tehran considered politically useful, according to Al Jazeera and FreightWaves reporting from April 3. The Kribi’s AIS transponder was then switched off entirely during the crossing, standard practice for all vessels using the IRGC-controlled Larak corridor, and the ship navigated the approved channel between the islands of Qeshm and Larak under what Euronews described as “coordination with Iranian maritime authorities.”

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Hours later, at the Security Council in New York, France joined China and Russia in co-vetoing the US-backed Chapter VII resolution that would have authorised military force to reopen the Strait. Macron’s stated position — that a military operation would be “unrealistic” and would expose naval forces to IRGC attacks, and that Hormuz “can only be reopened in consultation with Iran” — reads very differently when a French-owned ship had already consulted with Iran that morning and found the terms acceptable. The consultation Macron described as a future diplomatic aspiration was, for CMA CGM, a completed commercial transaction settled before the Security Council had finished voting.

…Read more: https://houseofsaud.com/iran-hormuz-sorting-mechanism/

The reason for this immediate capitulation is obvious. Net Zero policies have weakened Europe to the point they have to keep imported fossil fuel flowing.

This surrender to Iran’s toll without any attempt at exploring other options follows on from vigorous French support for buying fossil fuel from Russia during the Ukraine invasion.

The only questions, when will the rest of Europe and Britain join the French in paying a toll to Iran? How will Europe respond if Iran raises the Hormuz Strait transit fee? Will France continue and build on their new policy of cooperation with Russia in the United Nations, by supporting Russian interests in other ways? After all, Net Zero Britain and Europe need Russian gas just as much as they need Persian Gulf oil.