Chapter 757 Reason

Initially, the border between Kolo and Benin was drawn from north to south along the Mono River, with Benin in the east and Kolo in the west.

When arriving at the seaside, the line should be drawn along the Mono River estuary, but it was not drawn. It suddenly cut into Kolo for more than 20 kilometers, but the north-south length was less than 500 meters.

In other words, Kolo can see the sea 500 meters away on this 20-kilometer-long inner line, but it is blocked by Benin.

If you want to see the sea, you must go west around the Benin line of more than 20 kilometers to see it.

You should know that Kolo’s coastline is only about 70 kilometers in total, which means that nearly one-third of the coastline belonged to Benin at the beginning.

This is not just a matter of coastline, but also involves the ownership of a wider range of territorial waters.

However, through negotiations between the two sides, and Kolo paying a certain price, it finally recovered the 20-kilometer coastline...

After all, Kolo and Benin were both former colonies of France and members of the West African Economic Community, so the relationship was still good.

But the problem is that part of the offshore oil fields discovered by Kolo is located in the territorial waters extending from the 20-kilometer coastline that originally belonged to Benin.

This gave Benin some ideas.

Of course, there was also some French support behind the scenes. Eventually, armed forces from Benin began to frequently invade the Kolo offshore oil field area, affecting their oil production.

This is also something that is easy to understand. Originally, Kolo was within the sphere of influence of France. As a result, when they discovered rich offshore oil resources, Kolo had already left the West African Economic Community led by France and entered the Commonwealth...

In France's view, the oil-related rights and interests that the British have obtained in Kolo - such as the shares of United Energy Group in Kolo Oil Company, belong to the French oil company...

Especially before Kolo took back part of the coastline occupied by Benin, the oil and gas resources in the territorial waters extending from that area should belong to Benin.

At that time, no oil and gas resources were found. Based on the mentality that they were all former colonies, France had actively mediated in the negotiations between the two sides on this part of the coastline...

However, now all these have been "picked peaches" by the British. From the perspective of the French, how can they not be angry?

Although Benin's land area is larger than Kolo, it is not as good as Kolo in terms of economy and military. Now they actively allow some armed personnel to harass Kolo's offshore oil fields. In addition to their resentment, there must be French figures behind them.

The news obtained from Kolo's intelligence department also confirmed this matter-many armed personnel are financially supported by French companies.

In this way, after Kolo protested to Benin without success, the "refugee resettlement project" that the two sides originally cooperated on also stagnated.

Before the two frigates purchased from Britain returned to Kolo, their Kolo Corps Coast Guard temporarily ensured the safety of the offshore oil fields through the purchased speedboats and near-shore patrol gunboats.

During the meeting with Sarkozy, Barron also mentioned this matter by the way, hoping that France would avoid intervening in the dispute between the two sides...

For this topic, Sarkozy was a bit of a Tai Chi player, just saying that France has been paying attention to this matter, and hoped that both sides would exercise restraint and avoid escalating the conflict.

In fact, this matter may not be Sarkozy's instruction, but similarly, he is unwilling to get involved, just like although he is the President of France, there are some things that he cannot decide...

For example, the matter of Benin, which includes the French energy giant Total Energy.

Whether to offend the largest oil and energy company in France is something that Sarkozy needs to consider.

However, Barron only mentioned this matter by the way. Even if Sarkozy will not stop France's support for Benin, after the two frigates arrive in Colo, those sporadic harassment can be greatly curbed.

It is even said that if they still do not stop such behavior, Colo does not mind cross-border strikes.

Even if doing so will cause strong protests from Benin, or even a conflict between the two sides, this cannot stop Colo's determination.

After all, their oil extraction is one of the main sources of income for Colo, which is very important to Colo.

…

"My friend, Barron, I'm glad you can come here today..."

"When I came to Paris, I had to meet old friends, and Madam, you are getting more and more charming."

Afterwards, Barron came to visit Arnaud Lagardere's home again.

Here, he met Arnaud and his wife Jade who came to greet him.

It has to be said that the property left to him by Arnaud's father is really huge enough. Even after taking over the family business for so many years, Arnaud has been selling properties. The current Lagardere Group is still one of the largest comprehensive groups in France.

Although Arnaud's approach to business is hard to describe, he is still very individual in other aspects.

And it is hard to say that his lifestyle of enjoying life is wrong... After all, the family business is too big. Maybe if they continue to "spend money" like this, the family wealth will last longer than the result of the hard work of those untalented family heirs.

"Hello, Your Highness, my name is Cassandra. It is really an honor to meet you..."

Just when Barron attended this party, a beautiful girl dressed in fashionable clothes came to Barron and said so.

The girl looked about 18 or 19 years old, with a model figure and an angelic face, which made Barron's eyes light up.

During the conversation, Barron learned that the girl was the sister of Arnault's wife Jade... She had just been admitted to university and would become a freshman at the Paris Academy of Fine Arts in September.

Well, at this time, Barron suddenly realized that this girl named Cassandra was the girl who later got together with Arnault's son and finally created a bloody plot of the rich family.

Although that was the son born to Arnault and his first wife, and had no blood relationship with Cassandra, it was still a bit... outrageous.

It can be seen that Cassandra still has some shyness of a girl at this time, and Barron can also clearly feel that the girl likes him...

But...

Barron's eyes swept over the girl's body. It was hard to tell that she was only 18 or 19 years old with her mature figure. It was indeed very eye-catching.