Brussels, 07/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Saturday 5 December, France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius announced that France was no longer planning on the departure of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad before a political transition in Syria - thus taking a step backwards in relation to the previous statements from the French government.
“A united Syria involves a political transition. This does not mean that Bashar al-Assad must leave even before the transition, but assurances are needed for the future”, Fabius said in an interview with the French daily regional newspaper “Le Progrès” of Lyon. According to Fabius, the fight against Islamic State (IS) is “decisive” but it will only be totally effective if all Syrian and regional forces unite. However, he wondered if that was possible as long as al-Assad was president of Syria - “he who has carried out so many atrocities and who has a large part of his population against him”.
France has often adopted the hardest position as regards the departure of Bashar al-Assad. At the Foreign Affairs Council of 12 October, while several of his counterparts - such as the UK's foreign secretary Philip Hammond - thought it was necessary “to be flexible on the timing of al-Assad's departure”, for the French secretary of state for European Affairs, Harlem Désir, the political transition “should be made without Bashar al-Assad” (see EUROPE 11408). The future of the Syrian president is also a subject of disagreement among the countries participating in the Vienna political meetings for moving towards a political solution in Syria.
On 3 December, Fabius had also said that the fight against IS could be through cooperation with the Syrian army, on condition that Assad was no longer the head of it. “It is not possible to work with the Syrian army as long as Bashar al-Assad is the head of it. But from the time there is political transition and when al-Assad is not the head of the army, we can associate very well with what the Syrian army will be. But in a political transition”, he said on the sidelines of the COP 21 climate conference.
In his interview with “Le Progrès”, Fabius also hailed the participation of the UK and Germany in the coalition against IS (see EUROPE 11445). “The call to European solidarity that we launched is beginning to bear fruit. But the effort must be continued and increased”, he said. The lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, approved Germany's involvement in the coalition by 445 votes in favour, 146 against and 7 abstentions on Friday 4 December. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)