globeandmail.com : Past experience gives French qualms about Lebanon mission - Lack of offensive power worries France - by Susan Sachs

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Past experience gives French qualms about Lebanon mission - Lack of offensive power worries France - by Susan Sachs

PARIS -- Name a peacekeeping mission just about anywhere in the world, from Africa to Afghanistan, and French soldiers participate. But its past experiences, frustrating as well as deadly, have made France reluctant to commit large numbers of troops to a United Nations force assigned to keep the peace in Lebanon. After helping draft the Security Council resolution that brought about the ceasefire on Monday between Israel and the Hezbollah militia, France this week threw a wrench into UN peacekeeping plans for Lebanon.

French officials criticized the design for a new multinational force that would reinforce the existing 2,000-strong UN observer force in southern Lebanon, a mission known as UNIFIL, without giving it new offensive powers. They called it a recipe for disaster.