In recent months, Anastasia Lavrina has enabled us to show the activities of some of Azerbaijan's agents of influence in France, including Olivier Pardo, by featuring them in her publications.
Already fairly well known, but perhaps not well enough, lawyer Olivier Pardo was born in Marseille on December 19, 1958. According to several online sources, he is of Greek descent on his mother's side, and Turkish on his father's.
On January 22, 2024, Olivier Pardo appeared interviewed by Anastasia Lavrina on CBC TV Azerbaidjan. In it, he repeated the themes of Azerbaijani propaganda about Artsakh and its “occupation”.
This is not his first time. Known today as the lawyer of French far-right politician Eric Zemmour, Olivier Pardo has also long been Azerbaijan's lawyer in France.
In 2015, Olivier Pardo represented Azerbaijan after it sued the TV program Cash Investigation for defamation for calling the country a dictatorship. Fortunately, the dictatorship lost the case.
Olivier Pardo co-founded the law firm Oplus, whose other partners are Jonathan Siahou, Laurence Dauxin-Nedelec, Nathalie Makowski, Benjamin Mathieu, Antoine Cadeo de Iturbide and Baptiste de Fresse de Montval. As at December 10, 2019, before P2S became Oplus, Olivier Pardo owned 90% and Jonathan Siahou 10%.
In 2015, Laurence Dauxin-Nedelec was a lawyer for Azerbaijan with Olivier Pardo. And like him, she was not content with this role, as she also took part in a media operation for Azerbaijan in 2021.
That year, Oplus partners (Jonathan Siahou, Laurence Dauxin, Nathalie Makowski, Benjamin Mathieu, Antoine Cadeo de Iturbide and Baptiste de Fresse de Montval) signed a petition featuring all the themes of Azerbaijani propaganda.
In 2017, Olivier Pardo took on the role of communicator for Azerbaijan in France. He takes part in, and even initiates, actions to influence Azerbaijan in France. In March 2017, he said he was “passionate about this wonderful country, Azerbaijan”, and wanted to “use modern means of communication in [his] own name [...]”, publishing a petition for recognition of the “Khojaly genocide”".
Blow for blow, in March 2017, Olivier Pardo published the petition and took part in a demonstration against the visit of Armenian President Serj Sargsyan. He is seen there near Mirvari Fataliyeva, general secretary of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan.
In March 2020, Olivier Pardo attended the presentation of the book by the former Azerbaijani ambassador to France, Rahman Mustafayev, co-organized by Emmanuel Dupuy (subject of the previous publication) and the Association Dialogue France-Azerbaïdjan.
In 2019/20, the OPlus firm will boast, on its website with an image of Baku's Heydar Aliyev Center, of having, according to La Lettre, “forced prefects and diplomats to reframe mayors” who had signed friendship charters with Artsakh authorities.
In May 2021, Olivier Pardo declared that his firm would continue to work “until the last of the Charters of Friendship are cancelled”. Since 2015, he has been working hard to have these charters cancelled, putting pressure on the Quai d'Orsay.
But Olivier Pardo didn't just serve a dictatorship: in 2019, he also acted as lawyer for Holocaust denier Maxime Gauin, whose claims were rejected after he sued those who had described him as a Holocaust denier for defamation.
But to better understand Olivier Pardo's background, it's important to mention the woman who undoubtedly introduced him to the Azerbaijani Embassy in France: Rachida Dati, former Minister of Justice and current Minister of Culture. There's no need to go into the links between Azerbaijan and Rachida Dati: they are countless between 2010 and 2018 (the date on which a Cash Investigation report appeared showing these relations, and from which she has perhaps become more discreet).
An article published in February 2024 on an Azerbaijani media outlet welcomed Dati's appointment to the Ministry of Culture, and claimed that she had become close to Olivier Pardo, her lawyer, who had even advised her when she was Minister of Justice.
In 2019, for example, Olivier Pardo appears as Rachida Dati's lawyer in the Carlos Ghosn case, for which she has been prosecuted for “passive corruption”, “passive influence peddling” and “concealment of abuse of power” since 2021.
In 2021, Olivier Pardo and Rachida Dati both appeared on behalf of Félix Tshisekedi's Congolese government against Israeli businessman Dan Gertler.
Rachida Dati and Olivier Pardo were also together in 2024 when they were “suspected of having played an active role in the aborted attempt to extract several billion euros [from Total Energies] on behalf of businessman André Guelfi”.
Finally, the offices of Olivier Pardo and Rachida Dati were raided by the police in 2023. A man was allegedly forced to hand over documents to Qatar during meetings with his lawyers, including Pardo, for whom Dati had acted as intermediary.
In many ways, Olivier Pardo is an active intermediary for Azerbaijan in France. The propulsion of his client and professional partner Rachida Dati to the post of Minister of Culture in 2024 is quite alarming in this respect.
