Paris vs. Public Opinion on Fighting Islamic State By John Vinocur
http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-vs-public-opinion-on-fighting-islamic-state-1443465302
Polls show strong support for military action while politicians dither with ineffective air strikes.
The Socialist government responded Sunday by announcing it had made air strikes instead. This first intervention hardly differed from the U.S. air-only tactics the French privately insist doesn’t represent an effective Syrian strategy and damages Barack Obama’s pledge to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State as an enemy of civilization.
The poll findings signal a combative reflex from the French, unique so far among their allies. Published in early September, two polls showed the French favoring by 61% and 56% majorities the dispatch of French ground troops to Syria as part of an international force.
One canvass reported that members of all the main parties contending the 2017 presidential election—President François Hollande’s Socialists, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Republicans and Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Front—heavily favor ground action. An analysis by the Ifop polling organization found that groups as disparate as city dwellers, young people and members of liberal professions shared the same confrontational view and the conviction that Islamic State can be beaten.
Why such a hard-nosed attitude? Because Islamic State’s abominations and the prospect of France’s housing tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq have shaken the French in a dramatic, intimate manner that challenges the country’s standards of political correctness. A bit ironically, a French official described the situation to me this way: “The polls depict an interventionist France that remains the country of Charles Martel”—the Frankish general who defeated an invading Islamic army at the Battle of Tours in 732.
But this consensus doesn’t extend upward to the politicians. The weekend air raid points to a policy of gesture for France, seeking a relative comfort zone of visible but—like the U.S.—limited Syrian engagement.
It also indicates that because of the pro-Russian tics of French politics and the country’s historical irritations with U.S. leadership, Mr. Obama’s continued floundering can encourage France’s susceptibility to Moscow’s pressure. These days, the real demonstrations of strength in the Middle East and Europe are entirely Vladimir Putin’s.
That leaves Mr. Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls to try to discourage popular demand for a stronger response. After their Sept. 7 announcement of air strikes limited to Islamic State terrorist training sites in Syria, they declared the use of the country’s ground forces a no-go.
Mr. Valls made the following case: France would “support” a (currently nonexistent) coalition of troops from countries of the region if it attempted to liberate Syria. Concerning French participation on the ground against Islamic State, he added: “Intervene with the Europeans? Which ones would be ready for that adventure? With the Americans? Do they want to? No.”
Correct. But Mr. Valls also cast the French polling majorities and Westerners who don’t believe that diplomacy will succeed on its own in Syria as sponsors of a new Iraq-style disaster.
This encourages France’s Russia apologists, who insist that the current anti-Islamic State Western-led coalition must team up with Russia’s armed forces in Syria—although Mr. Putin’s obvious goal in going after the barbarians is to keep the country’s criminal president, Bashar Assad, in power.
Tack on the apologists’ notion that Russia should be rewarded with a quid pro quo for setting up military bases in Syria that establish Moscow as an unreliable America’s Middle East co-equal.
In these circumstances, France’s pro-Russia faction is unique in its influence at the highest national level. Ms. Le Pen has proudly acknowledged taking a Russian loan for her party. Mr. Sarkozy considers the West, not Russia, to blame for Cold War-type tensions in Europe.
A reader of France’s newspapers last week could see this slice of the French mood in opinion-page headlines exclaiming “Suspend the Sanctions Against Russia!” in the right-wing Le Figaro, and “We Must Fight Alongside Russia Against the Jihadis in Syria” in the left-oriented Le Monde.
So: Could the government continue limiting itself in Syria to the narrowness of only attacking “sanctuaries” where, it says, terrorist enemies of France are trained? And at the same time lean in Mr. Putin’s direction by considering an end to sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Crimea and Ukraine? It’s Mr. Hollande’s call.
He has argued in favor of lifting the penalties if a cease fire holds in eastern Ukraine—while NATO said last week the Russians have given no sign of taking home their heavy weapons. With the president’s candidacy for re-election tied to an unfulfilled pledge to create jobs, he seems to think some quick cash from an exonerated, ready-for-business Russia might help.
Whatever Mr. Hollande’s course, it is certain to ignore an admirable burst of French contradictoriness aimed at the leadership at home and throughout the West that deals with an Islamist army’s massive aggression at arm’s length.
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