On Tuesday, France ended its combat operations in Afghanistan, withdrawing 500 troops from a base northeast of Kabul after a handover ceremony with Afghan forces, according to an Associated Press report. The withdrawal satisfies domestic electoral promises by the French government to end its combat role on a faster track than other NATO allies.
"This is the end of combat operations," said Col. Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman, adding "It's the end of support operations for the Afghan National Army because we have no more troops who can deploy in such a role".
France was once one of the largest contributors to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, with a peak deployment of 4,000 troops. But French public opinion has gradually turned against the Afghanistan mission, especially after a succession of insurgent attacks raised the French death toll. France has lost 88 troops in Afghanistan since late 2001.
France plans to maintain 1,500 troops in Afghanistan in 2013, mainly to repatriate equipment deployed during the 11-year French military involvement in the allied intervention in Afghanistan. About 500 will help train and support Afghan forces, and help run Kabul's airport.
"Today, the Afghan forces are capable of planning and conducting security operations in an autonomous way," the French military said in a statement Tuesday. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international coalition, said it thanked France for its contribution and suggested the pullout would have no negative impact on allied operations.
Meanwhile, a week earlier, France became the first NATO state to recognize the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition, a move since followed by Britain. The decision by France and Britain to formally recognise the new Syrian opposition group as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Syrian people seems premature when in UK Foreign Secretary William Hague’s own words, the National Coalition "have much to do to win the full support of the Syrian people and co-ordinate opposition efforts more effectively".
Both governments have also said that they would consider arming the group known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. While Turkey has also formally recognised the rebels, as have members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait), the Obama administration continues to shy away from such a declaration and also remains wary of supplying weapons.
“I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said French President François Hollande on 13 November. Mr. Hollande also said, France—the former colonial power in Syria—had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government”.
The Syrian conflict began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011, but has since turned into a brutal civil war that has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighbouring countries.
Under the previous presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, France also took a leading role in the early days of the Libyan uprising when it helped funnel aid and later became the first NATO country to openly acknowledge arming the anti-Gaddafi rebels. The French Government also worked with London and Washington to secure a UN Security Council mandate to protect civilians in Libya and then led attacks (with British and US forces) against Libyan targets as part of a no-fly zone. While command of the Libya operation was quickly passed to NATO, the modus operandi was not without friction within the Alliance.
A similar UN mandate in Syria seems unlikely given Chinese and Russian opposition, while NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly said that NATO has no intention to intervene militarily in Syria. However, there does seem to be a growing risk that Paris, ably abetted by London and (this time around) Ankara, could yet draw the US and NATO deeper into the Syrian conflict. Today’s announcement that NATO is considering "without delay" Turkey's request to deploy Patriot anti-missile systems to protect its border with Syria could yet lead to a much more significant intervention.