Having taken the lead in finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Lebanon, France has been more reluctant to commit its troops on the ground, writes David Tresilian in Paris The announcement that only 200 French troops would be joining the international force being put together under UN auspices to police the ceasefire in Lebanon was greeted with disappointment last weekend, with spokesmen for both the UN and the US frankly saying that they had wished for more. The French announcement was greeted with consternation at the UN, which had hoped that France would lead a beefed-up UN force, immediately deploying between 2,000 and 5,000 troops as part of a total deployment of up to 15,000 men designed to assist the Lebanese army in south Lebanon, monitor the Israeli withdrawal, and police the ceasefire under the terms of UN Security Resolution 1701. Now that France seems to have refused this role a "shadow" has been cast over the ceasefire arrangements, according to Mark Malloch Brown, deputy UN secretary-general, with Israel reportedly unhappy at any force not containing a majority European contingent and criticising the French announcement. According to the French defence minister, Michele Alliot- Marie, the "material and legal means" made available to a beefed-up UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), the small UN force already in Lebanon, to police the ceasefire were inadequate, and France would not commit further troops until clarification on the force's role and mandate was given. "The troops have to be told why they are there," she told RTL, a French television channel last Friday. "Certainly they are there to support the Lebanese army, but up to what point, and in which areas? You can't send men out, telling them just to watch what happens and that they don't have the right either to defend themselves from attack or to fire on others." France is now pressing for what it calls "European solidarity" on the crisis, leaving open the possibility that it might be prepared to commit more troops if the question of their mandate is resolved and if other European countries are prepared to do likewise. The French deployment of 200 men, part of which left for Lebanon last weekend, is intended to join the 200 French troops already in the country as part of the small UNIFIL force already commanded by France. Mostly engineers, they will assist in rebuilding Lebanon's damaged infrastructure, notably bridges and roads destroyed during the Israeli bombardments. While there has been widespread international disappointment at the French announcement, reaction in France itself has been muted, with many commentators pointing to the country's reluctance to get involved in operations in Lebanon owing to the "Drakkar syndrome", a reference to the deaths of 58 French soldiers in an attack on a French military base in Beirut in 1983, quite possibly carried out by Hizbullah. The French military is understood to be unwilling to undertake any operations in Lebanon as long as the nature of these operations remains "vague" and there is a risk of UN peace- keepers either getting caught up in the conflict between Israel and Hizbullah, or being used to disarm Hizbullah and having to fight the armed group. Previous attempts at disarming militia groups, for example in the Balkans, are unhappily remembered in France, French troops making up half of the 167 men killed in the inadequate and poorly resourced UN attempt to keep the peace in the ex-Yugoslavia from 1992 onwards, a "humiliation" according to one French veteran quoted last week in Le Monde. Nevertheless, according to an editorial that appeared in the same newspaper last weekend, having been "strongly engaged throughout a month of war in finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hizbullah, obtaining the support of the United States for the ending of the Israeli offensive and imposing its vision in a resolution co-sponsored by the US and unanimously approved by the UN Security Council," France now seemed to have got cold feet. The situation in Lebanon was different from the situation in the ex-Yugoslavia, the newspaper said, since "while at Sarajevo it was a matter of maintaining a peace that did not exist, this time round there is an existing, respected ceasefire, agreed on internationally, by Israel and among the Lebanese. It is essential to be concerned about disarming Hizbullah, but it is precisely France that has imposed a Lebanese solution." "If France refuses to provide the backbone for an effective UN force capable of assisting Beirut militarily," the newspaper added, "it will be leaving the field open to Hizbullah to rebuild its 'state within a state', which will be even more dangerous as this will signal a victory for Iran." During the more than month-long conflict between Hizbullah forces in Lebanon and Israel, only ended due to the current fragile ceasefire, France consistently called for an end to all hostilities, statements made by French politicians explicitly criticising the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and appearing to be out of step with the British and American line of avoiding any condemnation of Israel. During the five-week Israeli bombardments of the country, more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed, with an estimated one million people having to flee their homes and widespread destruction caused throughout the country. Soon after the conflict began in early July, French President Jacques Chirac used his traditional Bastille Day speech to criticise the "completely disproportionate" attacks by Israel. In an interview published on 27 July setting out the French position on the crisis, Chirac said that France wanted to see an immediate ceasefire, "accepted by all those involved", followed by a political agreement on the basis of UN Resolution 1559 which calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon and the disbandment of the Lebanese militias, and then the "deployment of a multinational force" under UN auspices. These statements of the French position differed from those coming out of Washington and London, which had instead broadly supported the Israeli actions and had avoided support for an immediate ceasefire, and they brought back memories of similar disagreements in 2003 when France led efforts to halt the US-led invasion of Iraq. France, the previous colonial power in Lebanon, has retained close links with the country, and many Lebanese speak French, live in France, or have French nationality. Comment in the French press since the crisis began has also tended to be critical both of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and of US policy in the region. In an editorial published on the front page of Le Monde on 1 August , the editor, Jean-Marie Colombani, wrote of the absence "of a serious and resolute engagement" on the part of the United States in the crisis. US actions were instead being determined by the "fantasy" of reshaping the Middle East, he said, "in the name of which the US has justified the green light it has given thus far to Israel in its military actions against Hizbullah." This "fantasy" had now led to "chaos" in Lebanon and Iraq, he said, as well as to the end of a meaningful peace process in Palestine.
