In a column published by Valeurs actuelles and cosigned by political scientist Antoine Sfeir, the deputy-mayor of Meaux called for the international community to react with military force against the Islamic State.
Jean-Francois Copé, former UMP president, signed the piece along with Sfeir, calling for military action. “The 30,000 [militants] have neither aircraft carriers nor Rafales. A large coalition can overcome them…” they wrote. Under UN mandate, Russians and NATO can lend air support as well as an international force notably made up of armed troops from the Middle East that can intervene on the ground.”
“We must drain the funding coming from private donors in the Gulf and from oil and contraband that passes through Turkey,” they wrote. The authors appealed to the international community, “including Europe and the United States,” to act: according to them, these countries are not doing all they can “to stop Daesh’s advances in Iraq and Syria.”
The men asked for the issue to be approached with pragmatism: “in politics, as in diplomacy, it’s necessary to choose the least evil. The enemies of our enemies are our allies in this case.” “Daesh is our mortal enemy,” they reiterated: to effectively oppose them, it’s necessary to “question the effectiveness of a total rejection of the Syrian regime.”
Thursday, Bruno Le Maire echoed a similar sentiment. For him, military intervention must be accompanied by “legitimate diplomacy,” approved by the UN. According to the deputy of Eure, “France must take the initiative to set up a military coalition where the troops on the ground are from the region’s countries. It’s up to them to work to combat Daesh in Syria.”
