Europe | France at war

Coalition of the grudging

A bellicose France tries to persuade its allies that the fight against Islamic State is a fully fledged war

|PARIS

IN THE aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13th, the French framed their response with unambiguous martial resolve. President François Hollande declared that “France is at war”, and that Islamic State (IS) would be “destroyed” without mercy. Images of French fighter planes taking off to bomb IS targets in Syria from the aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle have been beamed out nightly on television news. After extra deployments, 5,000 soldiers now patrol the streets of the French capital.

This week Mr Hollande went on a whirlwind tour in search of allies for a “grand coalition” to fight the good fight. He has scheduled talks over seven days with the leaders of seven countries, including Barack Obama in Washington, DC and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. For the French, the murder of 130 people in their capital city constitutes an “act of war”, which requires a military response far beyond the American-led air strikes on Syria and Iraq during the past year.

Some support for Mr Hollande, who has tripled France’s air-strike capacity in the region, is already on its way. Britain’s David Cameron says he will ask Parliament to authorise air strikes on Syria. Mr Obama has pledged closer sharing of intelligence for target-selection, and an intensification of attacks on IS. Yet Mr Hollande’s ambition is greater: he has said that he hopes to put together a “unique coalition” to fight IS, drawing Russia onside, and to bring Europe into the war, too.

On the first count, the French president has had to scale back talk of a formal coalition. But he is still hoping to find common ground with the Russians, themselves outraged by the deaths of 224 Russians on a flight over Egypt that was bombed last month. France, which only this year cancelled the sale of two Mistral-class warships to Russia, sees an unusual opportunity now to wage common war on IS. The French talk of “annihilating” the terrorist group. The Russians speak of hunting them down “at any point on the planet”. To that end, Russia ordered its warships to share information about positions with the approaching Charles de Gaulle, in a spirit of co-operation.

Crowded skies

The risks of multiple unco-ordinated combat operations over Syria were underlined on November 24th, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet (see article). Yet the diplomatic challenge of resolving this is great, not least because of the gap between America, which regards Mr Assad as the problem, and Russia, which calls him a bulwark against IS. France too has long insisted on Mr Assad’s departure. But it now wants to make the immediate common priority the fight against IS.

In the short run, France may have a better chance of winning European support. It has already invoked an EU mutual-defence clause. Besides the possible British air strikes, France may secure aerial intelligence from Germany. Its operations elsewhere may get help too. One of only two muscular military powers in Europe, France has been unusually willing to intervene abroad, partly because public opinion has not been scarred by misadventure in Iraq. Now it could be relieved in places such as Mali, where France has some 1,000 troops, and where terrorists murdered at least 20 hostages in a hotel last week. Germany may send 650 soldiers to Mali.

There is plenty of goodwill towards France across Europe right now, in part because of a chilling understanding that the massacre in Paris could have happened anywhere. Yet no other European leader is using the word “war”. Only Belgium is on anything like a war footing, after a four-day lockdown in Brussels in response to terror alerts. Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s foreign minister, spoke for many when he offered to help France, but stressed that this “does not mean Italy should feel it is at war”.

Talk of war raises expectations of victory. “In a war, people expect a beginning, a middle and an end,” says François Heisbourg of the Foundation for Strategic Research. “But the struggle against terrorism is pretty endless.”

The French government is unapologetic. “The attacks were an act of war,” argues Manuel Valls, the prime minister; “not in a conventional sense, but it was war.” Framing the threat this way is meant partly to alert public opinion to the terrorist threat which, he says, will last several years, and could include chemical attacks. It also helped secure parliamentary approval for the extension of a state of emergency by three months. This has given the police sweeping powers to act without judicial authorisation: so far they have carried out 1,233 searches, seized 230 arms and put 266 people under house arrest.

There have been some complaints about heavy-handed operations turning up nothing. But, for now, the French seem remarkably tolerant of the intrusions. As Mr Valls’s Socialist government adopts measures hitherto regarded as the preserve of the political right, in line with public opinion, the civil-liberties left has become inaudible. In one poll, fully 84% of French said they would be prepared to accept further constraints on freedom. Brutally shaken by the terrorist attacks on the French way of life, the country seems ready to recalibrate its balancing of civil liberties and national security. It may find that the rest of Europe is not quite ready to do the same—unless, or until, threats turn into deadly attacks elsewhere.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Coalition of the grudging"

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