François Hollande wrongfooted by US move on Syria

France has been forced on to the defensive by President Barack Obama’s decision to delay a military strike on Syria, admitting it cannot act on its own without the US and resisting growing pressure to hold its own parliamentary vote on an attack.

President François Hollande had signalled on Friday that action in retaliation for the Syrian regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons was imminent, despite Britain’s surprise decision not to participate. “France is ready,” he said.

Mr Hollande was understood to favour an early and rapid operation, but he now faces an awkward period while the US Congress prepares to debate the issue, with an increasing number of voices in France questioning his commitment to join an assault on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

Manuel Valls, the interior minister who is a member of Mr Hollande’s national security council, said on Sunday that France remained determined to take action, but admitted that Paris had no choice but to await the outcome of the congressional vote.

“France cannot act alone,” he said in a radio interview. “If the (UN) security council is prevented from acting, we need a coalition as large as possible.”

Mr Obama’s decision compounded a domestic situation made difficult for Mr Hollande by the failed move by David Cameron, the British prime minister, to gain prior parliamentary approval for military action.

“There is a new situation following the vote in the House of Commons,” Mr Valls acknowledged.

A senior French official told the Financial Times the delay in the military operation was “not ideal” as it gave the Syrian regime more time to prepare evasive action.

But he said President Hollande “understands perfectly” the political imperative for Mr Obama to gain congressional support.

Nevertheless he said the Elysee did not intend to sanction a vote in the French national Assembly, despite its confidence that there was majority support from both the Socialist party and those supportive of military action in the centre right UMP opposition.

François Fillon, prime minister under former president Nicolas Sarkozy and a leading figure in the UMP, has voiced strong doubts about French involvement in military action and has joined growing demands for a vote when the National Assembly debates Syria on Wednesday after being recalled by Mr Hollande.

“In the current circumstances I think France cannot go to war without the clear support of parliament,” Mr Fillon tweeted on Sunday.

Mr Hollande is in the uncomfortable situation of holding the opposite position to that taken by France in 2003 when it refused to join the US-led invasion of Iraq, not least because of a lack of clear authorisation by the UN Security Council.

Although there remains support for military action within the UMP, other senior party figures and the leaders of two centre parties have also called for a parliamentary vote, which is not required by the constitution.

Mr Fillon, prime minister when France and the UK spearheaded Nato’s air attacks on the Libyan regime of Muammer Gaddafi, remarked that in similar past situations, Mr Hollande’s Socialist party had always demanded such a vote.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he would convene a meeting on Monday of parliamentary and party leaders to brief them on the Syrian position ahead of the debate.

But Mr Valls said there would be no vote, insisting that the president’s freedom to act must be preserved. Under the French constitution, parliament must be convened within three days of an armed intervention abroad, but no vote is required even at that stage.

“There has been no intervention yet . . . there will be no vote,” he said.

President Hollande won broad public support for France’s successful military action launched in January to oust Islamist militants from Mali. But public opinion appears to be more circumspect about an attack on Syria. A BVA poll published on Saturday showed 64 per cent of respondents opposed French involvement.

In an open letter to the president, François Bayrou, leader of the centrist Modem party who backed Mr Hollande against Mr Sarkozy in last year’s presidential election, warned him against setting a precedent by intervening “without a UN mandate, without our European allies, without Nato, in a bilateral action with the US”.

An attack had uncertain outcomes that risked handing a victory in Syria to “fundamentalist forces engaged in a global drive to impose Islamist policies” in the region, Mr Bayrou wrote in the letter, published in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.