In an interview with the French public TV channel, France2, which was broadcast on the 20th April at 8 p.m., President Bachar el-Assad spoke about the current secret relations between his country, the Syrian Arab Republic, and France.

Over the last few weeks, contradictory signals have been sent which attest to the divisions within the French Executive
• A French emissary travelled to Damascus, under the control of President François Hollande. He was received by the head of the Secret Services, general Ali Mamelouk.
• The French government, directed by Manuel Valls, has sold several million Euros worth of merchandise to Syria, despite the fact that France has decreed an embargo against Syria.
• At the same time, the Élysée and the Quai d’Orsay continue to actively support
– al-Qaïda in Syria (the al-Nusra Front) – including by the supply of weapons and the presence of military advisors – although France has added this organisation to the United Nations list of terrorist organisations;
– the Muslim Brotherhood, a secret society which has been working for the CIA since 1953, and already attempted to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic in 1982.

In 2010, both France and the United Kingdom, working for the United States, prepared a number of events which were mediatised as a « popular uprising » against the Syrian Arab Republic, and justified, in the eyes of Western public opinion and the Gulf States, four years of war. France and the UK thus share a prime responsibility in the international conflict which has already caused more than 80,000 deaths in the Syrian Arab Army (more than the dead caused by the Israeli wars) and more than 140,000 civilian deaths.

Translation
Pete Kimberley