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France's constitution doesn't require that President François Hollande win approval from parliament before launching French military operations abroad -- as he did earlier this year to stop al-Qaeda linked militias from overrunning Mali. But given the complexity and risk involved, Hollande may well wish he were legally obliged to follow President Barack Obama's example by asking his legislature to share responsibility for military action in Syria.
Despite being free to act without legislative mandate, French government officials said this week that Hollande may in fact allow France's sharply divided National Assembly to vote on the issue. The legislature is currently engaged in heated debate on a non-binding resolution on a military operation to "punish" the regime of President Bashar al-Assad for its alleged use of chemical weapons. With Hollande's Socialists dominating parliament and a significant number of conservatives likely to join them in backing a proposed military campaign, it's unlikely the president would suffer defeat -- even if Green Party members of his coalition were to vote against it.
Hollande's hesitation contrasts with his initial pledge to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. in taking firm action in response to the suspected gas attack near Damascus last month. On Aug. 30, just hours after the British parliament voted against participation in an international military operation without U.N. authorization, Hollande told Le Monde that action was required to "punish" the Assad regime if it "took the vile decision to gas innocents." France was ready to act, he said, and would "decide our position in close consultation with our allies." Many French pundits enjoyed the French leader's apparent steely resolve, some crowing that it propelled France into Britain's long established role as Washington's European wingman.
Things have changed since then.
For one thing, President Obama's own resolve appeared to stutter, as he pivoted from an apparent readiness to act immediately to a decision to seek congressional approval in the face of considerable skepticism from legislators of both parties and from the war-weary American public. Hollande now says the outcome of the vote on Capitol Hill will determine whether he'll bother trying to sell intervention to the French -- there's simply no prospect of foreign military intervention in Syria without the U.S. doing the heavy lifting.
"François Hollande thought American approval of action would be immediate, that the international coalition ready to participate would be much wider and stronger, and that French opinion would swing behind it with similar force," says Karim Emile Bitar, an Arab and Middle East expert at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris. "Hollande was disappointed on all those points, foremost by the considerable doubts from Washington."
Of course, France and Britain had acted differently on Libya in 2011, leading the push for intervention and even twisting American arms to participate. This time, the difference is that, like Obama, Hollande has unexpectedly encountered more opposition to intervention in Syria from French politicians and public opinion. In stark contrast to the majority that backed Hollande's mission in Mali -- and the high levels of public and political support for President Nicolas Sarkozy's intervention in Libya -- recent polls show nearly 65 percent of France's electorate opposing a military strike on Syria.
So why the new reluctance in Paris to intervene despite the horrific images out of Syria? Some of the hostility appears to arise from political calculations -- many of Hollande's conservative foes who had initially demanded intervention came out in opposition to that option once they heard the president concur. Other rightists give lip service to an anti-Assad intervention, but insist that it be authorized by a U.N. Security Council resolution that they know will never be allowed by Russia.
Hollande's Syria plan is also being challenged by more principled political objections. While the extreme-left and -right both oppose intervention for contrasting reasons, the military option united disparate opponents on the center and right too. Notables such as centrist leader François Bayrou, former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and former neo-Gaullist Foreign Minister and Premier Dominique de Villepin are all vocally hostile to an armed response to the suspected chemical attacks. They argue strikes would be unlikely to significantly weaken Assad, but would kill off prospects of any internationally brokered political solution to Syria's civil war, and considerably raise the risk of igniting conflict across the entire volatile region.
"The fear is if Assad sees himself imperiled by attacks -- or simply wants to avenge them -- he'd get Hezbollah to launch rocket strikes on Israel to provoke Israeli retaliation on Syrian and Lebanese targets, and dramatically widen the conflict in a manner that could drag in more nations, including Iran," says Bitar. "Even Hollande worries about the risks of violence becoming regional, which anti-interventionists are playing up as much as possible."
Some on the French right echo Assad's own narrative that his regime is all that stands between Syria and a deluge of extremist violence that could turn the country into a platform for al-Qaeda. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has warned that weakening Assad would open the door for al-Qaeda militias to take over Syria. Le Pen's view has been echoed by members of France's conservative Union for a Popular Majority party, who seek to pull that traditionally mainstream party towards the far right. Their Le Pen-sounding warnings on Syria have played to Assad's advantage.
"Assad knows Islamophobia, anti-Arab focus of immigration opponents and fear of terrorism has been rising in France," says Bitar. "And he has played that to the hilt in amplifying the French right's warnings about 'Islamo-fascism.'"
The irony, argues a senior member of France's counter-terrorism security services, is that while international military intervention may be illegal and riddled with risk, anti-Assad strikes may be the only way to confront the threats to which France's conservative opponents call attention.
"We've already seen over 1,000 young European (Muslims) flock to Syria via Turkey to take up a fight and protect innocent Syrian civilians they see Western governments failing to help," the official says. "The longer this war continues, the greater the number of aspiring jihadi going to Syria will become. We'll see more zealots go to Syria to learn to fight, bomb, torture, kill before eventually coming home. In terms of domestic security, anything that can be done to weaken Assad and make him leave or negotiate reduces the future terror threat. It also reduces the risk Assad will use chemical weapons on his own people -- something he's done repeatedly once he learned that failed to provoke threatened international action."
But Hollande faces a mounting challenge in convincing a skeptical public of the warnings from within his security services of the danger to French security of Syria's civil war remaining unresolved.
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