Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
SYRIA CRISIS

FRANCE SYRIA

French Assembly to hold emergency Syria debate

A possible French military intervention in Syria will be debated by French deputies next week during an emergency session on the crisis. President Francois Hollande has warned he is "ready to punish" those responsible for the recent chemical weapons attack.

Published: 28 August 2013 12:38 CEST
French Assembly to hold emergency Syria debate
Will France intervene militarily in Syria? Photo: Boris Horvat/AFP

The French parliament will hold an emergency session to debate the Syria crisis on September 4, minister Alain Vidalies said on Wednesday.

The announced debate comes as France and its allies weigh a potential military intervention in Syria following an alleged chemical weapons attack last week in the Damascus suburbs that the West blames on the regime.

"There will be a special debate in the (lower house) National Assembly and in the (upper house) Senate," said Vidalies, who is in charge of relations between the government and parliament.

It is as yet unclear whether a military operation will take place over last Wednesday's alleged attack – which Syria's opposition says killed more than 1,300 people – and if it does, when it will happen.

But under French law, a one-off military intervention does not need parliamentary approval.

French President François Hollande gave a defiant speech on Tuesday warning the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad that France was "ready to punish" those responsible for the chemical weapons attack.

Hollande further warned that the Syrian civil war posed "a threat to world peace."

Stressing a "responsibility to protect civilians," Hollande also said that "chemical massacre cannot remain without a response from France."

To that end, he declared: "I have decided to increase our military support to the Syrian National Coalition," the country's main opposition body

Hollande also announced he would be meeting with his defence chiefs on Wednesday, in order to devise a strategy.

Earlier in the day a source from within his administration had promised France would not "shirk its responsibilities" in Syria.

The source said the "massive use" of chemical weapons is "unacceptable", adding that there was no doubt that President Bashar al-Assad's regime had used them in a deadly attack last week on a Damascus suburb.

Tensions have ratcheted up dramatically in recent days with Washington warning Damascus that it could face action over the alleged chemical weapons strikes in which hundreds are said to have been killed.

US Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has said American forces are in place and "ready to go" if ordered to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Britain, meanwhile, has called back its lawmakers from their summer holidays to vote on a response to the Syria crisis.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

FRANCE SYRIA

Minister’s fears over ‘300’ French Islamists in Syria

France's interior minister revealed on Thursday that hundreds of homegrown Islamist militants were signing up to fight in Syria and warned they could pose a security threat if and when they return home.

Published: 19 September 2013 15:09 CEST
Minister's fears over '300' French Islamists in Syria
Members of the jihadist group Al-Nusra Front, bearing the flag of Al-Qaeda in Syria where hundreds of French nationals have benn fighting. Photo: Guillaume Briquet/AFP

More than 300 French nationals or residents are either currently fighting in Syria's civil war, planning to go and fight or have recently returned from there, the minister, Manuel Valls, told France Inter radio.

Most of them were young men, often with a delinquent past, who had become radicalised, he said.

"This is a phenomenon which worries me because they represent a potential danger when they return to our soil," Valls said. "We have to be extremely attentive."

France, which has the largest Muslim population in western Europe, has increased its monitoring of Islamic radicals since  Al-Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohamed Merah killed seven people in and around the southwestern city of Toulouse last year.

It subsequently emerged that Merah had spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan and that French intelligence had been aware of his contacts with militants in those two countries.

According to British defence consultancy IHS Jane's, there are up to 10,000 jihadists from all over the world currently fighting in Syria on the side of rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime they want to replace with an Islamic state.

Experts in counter-terrorism fear that a chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21 could inspire more radicals to embark on jihad, or holy war, in Syria, increasing the numbers of a new generation of battle-hardened militants capable of wreaking havoc when they return to their home countries.

"If they are not able to set up an Islamic state in Syria, they'll come back disappointed," Marc Trevidic, France's top anti-terrorism judge, was quoted as saying earlier this week.

At least one French national has died fighting in Syria – a 22-year-old white convert to Islam from Toulouse only identified as Jean-Daniel, who was killed in a clash with government forces in August.

Valls has previously warned that there are "several dozen, perhaps several hundred, potential Merahs in our country" and described their presence as a ticking time bomb

In October 2012, police shot dead the alleged ringleader of an Islamist cell suspected of carrying out a grenade attack on a Jewish grocery store in a Paris suburb the previous month.

A prosecutor branded that homegrown group of Islamist extremists as the biggest terror threat the country had faced since the Algerian-based GIA carried out a string of deadly bombings in the 1990s.

Islamist groups threatened to stage attacks in France as well as on French targets after Paris intervened in Mali early this year in reaction to advances made by Islamist groups who had seized control of the north of the country.

Citing intelligence reports, Valls said there were more than 130 French nationals or residents currently fighting in Syria, about 50 who had returned home, some 40 who were in transit areas and around a 100 who were likely to travel to Syria.

SHOW COMMENTS