‘Barbaric state’: French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Bashar al-Assad's fall in Syria

Macron on Sunday said his country remains committed to the “security of all” in the Middle East.

French president Emmanuel Macron on Sunday welcomed the fall of the Syrian government headed by Bashar al-Assad and said his country remains committed to “security of all” in the Middle East.

France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he arrives to attend the first mass for the public in which Archbishop of Paris will lead prayers to consecrate the new main alter, at the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, in Paris, on December 8, 2024. (AFP)

“The barbaric state has fallen. At last. I pay tribute to the Syrian people, to their courage, to their patience. In this moment of uncertainty, I send them my wishes for peace, freedom, and unity,” Macron wrote in a post on X.

“France will remain committed to the security of all in the Middle East,” he added.

Earlier, the French foreign ministry welcomed the fall of Assad and called for an end to conflict in Syria and a “peaceful political transition”. "Now is the time for unity in Syria," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

France also claimed that Assad pursued a policy of “violent oppression against his own people” for more than a decade, and appealed to the Syrian people for “unity and reconciliation, and to reject all forms of extremism”.

French stance on Syria

France has historical ties to Syria. The country was under French control as a mandate under the erstwhile League of Nations until independence in 1946. The country's modern goals towards Syria are shaped by its stated counter-terrorism objective.

Paris was among the first countries to call for Assad's exit and condemned widespread repression against the 'pro-democracy' protesters.

In 2012, France was the first Western country to recognise the Syrian National Coalition, a major opposition group, as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian people”.

Unlike the US, France has refrained from putting boots on the ground and limited its scope of support to humanitarian and other non-lethal aid to opposition groups.

Post the emergence of the Islamic State terror group, Paris began conducting airstrikes in Syria as a part of a US-led coalition against the terror group's strongholds. The country has also deployed special forces to support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their fight against ISIS. The terror group carried out attacks in Paris in November 2015.

France also hosts a significant population of Syrian refugees and political dissidents who fled the country after the outbreak of war.