Syria’s civil war.
France’s intervention in Mali has emboldened the government on other overseas operations. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was largely ousted from northern Mali. Only seven French soldiers died in the months-long intervention, while French officials say hundreds of militants were killed. The operation paved the way for elections generally seen as legitimate.
The Mali intervention offered France “an assertion of French military capabilities outside of an operation dominated by the U.S.,” said Marc Pierini, a Frenchman who served 35 years as a European Union diplomat, including four years as its ambassador to Syria at the start of Assad’s tenure.
SOLE STRENGTH IN EUROPE?
After Britain’s parliament blocked any potential British military participation in a Syria strike earlier this month, France stood alone as the European country most willing to wield the military threat alongside the United States against Assad’s regime.
From a military standpoint, “none of the other European countries are needed,” Pierini said. “The only European country that has Tomahawks is the U.K. — it’s paralyzed politically — so the next best thing is the French Scalp,” an airplane-fired cruise missile.
Former Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said France also wants to give more teeth to the EU.
“The other Europeans are not in the mindset of ‘Europe power,’ but one of ‘Big Switzerland’ — that’s to say an isolationist, pacifist evolution,” and want to avoid “all foreign dramas and intervene as little as possible,” he said in a phone interview.
Not so France.
WANTING TO BE HEARD
A permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, France is often seen as a fading, if not already faded, power. Hollande wants to counter that, and is using France’s vast diplomatic network to do so.
It’s also propelled by a French Revolution-era belief in universal values of human rights, which has played a role in French military interventions from Bosnia to Afghanistan. An exception was Iraq a decade ago, when then-President Jacques Chirac opposed the U.S.-led operation in Iraq, saying it wasn’t justified.
“C’est la France, Monsieur!” said Pierini, referring to France’s impulse to intervene. “It’s in part the issue of principle.”
Added Vedrine, the former foreign minister: “The question is not, ‘Do we side up with the United States?’ It is, ‘Can we let this massacre happen without reacting?’”