Liban, Hezbollah: le Quai d'Orsay est-il libre de ses mouvements?

Résumé 

– 8 avril 1983 : attaque à la roquette du Djihad islamique contre paras français

– 27 août 1983 : détournement d’un avion d’Air France (Vienne-Paris) sur Téhéran (par Amal Islamique – cerveau : Hussein Moussawi; demandes: retrait de la France du Liban, fin de l’aide militaire française à l’Irak, libération de tous les prisonniers libanais des prisons françaises)

– exécution de Gilles Vidal, n°2 de l’ambassade française.

– opération préventive ratée DGSE: jeep militaire aux couleurs de la croix rouge remplie de 500 kilos d’explosifs devant l’ambassade iranienne de Beyrouth.

– 23 octobre 1983: camions piégés contre baraquements américains et français de Beyrouth (djihad Islamique : autre nom du Hezbollah : 241 Marines, 58 soldats français; dix jours à la France pour quitter le Liban

– 12 décembre 1983: voiture piégée du Hezbollah devant l’ambassade de France au Koweït

– 21 décembre 1983 : attaque soldats FINUL sud-Liban, 10 morts dont un soldat français, centaine de blessés

– 23 décembre 1983: expulsion de 6 diplomates iraniens suspectés d’activités terroristes et bombardement français de Amal Islamique et d’un camp du Hezbollah à
Baalbek (20 militants chiites, 12 formateurs iraniens), dénonciation de
la France par l’ayatollah Khomeiny comme « état terroriste »

– 31 décembre 1983: double explosion simultanée gare de Marseille et TGV Paris Marseille (Carlos, Djihad Islamique : 4 morts)

– 1984 : départ définitif de la France du Liban

– mars 1985-janvier 1987 : prise d’otage de 16 Français (journalistes ou diplomates pour soutien à l’Irak: jusqu’à trois ans, dont un assassiné)

– décembre 85 – Septembre 86 : campagne de terreur au sein des villes françaises (FNAC, BHV, Pub Renault): Iran commanditaire, via réseau Hezbollah et cellule logistique de maghrébins : 13 morts, centaines de blessés)

– 18 jullet 1986: assassinat du patron de Renault et… fondateur d’ Eurodif Georges Besse (pour cause de non-remboursement d’avoirs prêtés mais aussi de refus de livraisons, contractuellement prévues, d’uranium enrichi du temps du Shah – notamment en 78 le milliard de dollars comme entrée dans le capital d’Eurodif qui devait être remboursé à partir de 81 et tardant à être rendus pour cause de guerre avec l’Irak)

– octobre 99: invitation de Khatami à Paris avec en bonus… dépot degerbe au Panthéon sur les tombes des Curie!

– février 2000 : qualification du Hezbollah de groupe terroriste par le premier ministre Lionel Jospin (conférence de presse en Israël) ; contestation du ministre des affaires étrangères Hubert Védrine rappel à l’ordre de Chirak

– octobre 2002 : invitation de Nasrallah par Chirak au Sommet de la Francophonie de Beyrouth

– 17 décembre 2003 : menace du cheikh Fadlallah suite au projet d’interdiction du foulard dans écoles françaises

– mai 2004 : description du Hezbollah comme organisation essentiellement sociale par Jean Daniel Levitte, ambassadeur de France aux USA (aucune raison de mettre le Hezbollah sur la liste des terroristes de l’Union Européenne)

– août 2004 : soutien conjoint franco-américain résolution 1559 de l’ONU Nations appelant au retrait des troupes syriennes du Liban et au désarmement des milices y compris le Hezbollah (mais uniquement par les autorités libanaises)

– décembre 2004 : interdiction en France, sous la pression de l’opinion, d’Al-Manar, chaîne de télévision de propagande du Hezbollah violemment antisémite

– 29 août 2005: insistance de Chirak, devant les ambassadeurs français, sur application intégrale de la résolution 1559, suite à assassinat de son ami intime et premier ministre Rafik Hariri le 14 Février

(condamnation des actions illégales et violentes du Hezbollah à l’encontre d’Israël par le ministre des Affaires Étrangères français, Douste-Blazy et Catherine Colonna, Ministre des Affaires Européennes, mais traîne les pieds pour inscrire le Hezbollah sur la liste des organisations terroristes de l’Union Européenne)

– 27 septembre 2005: Gérard Araud, ambassadeur de France en Israël (la France veut donner au Hezbollah «une place dans le processus démocratique et lui faire comprendre que dans ce processus démocratique il n’y a pas de place pour les armes et le terrorisme» ; placer le Hezbollah sur la liste des terroristes ne changerait rien mais serait une occasion pour le monde arabe d’y voir «un complot américano-sioniste». La France «ne veut pas leur donner ce plaisir»)

– 19 janvier 2006 : déclaration de Chirak sur le terrorisme (en cas d’attaque terroriste contre les alliés français (les monarchies du Golfe Persique essentiellement) et/ou les intérêts nationaux (dont les équipements pétroliers) la France pouvait avoir recours à un usage du nucléaire)

– 12 juillet 2006: critique d’israël par Chirak pour un usage de la force disproportionné, mais pas de solution à long terme sans désarmer le Hezbollah le plus rapidement possible.

– 24 juillet 2006: ministre des affaires étrangères Douste-Blazy obligé de s’abriter lors d’une visite de Haïfa, suite à une attaque de roquettes remplies de billes de fer du Hezbollah («la première des conditions pour un cessez-le-feu est bien sûr le désarmement du Hezbollah»)

– 31 juillet 2006 : déclaration de Douste-Blazy sur l’Iran : ”un grand pays, un grand peuple et une grande civilisation, qui est respecté et qui joue un rôle de stabilisation dans la région”

The French-Hezbollah Connection

Olivier Guitta
The Weekly Standard
31.07.2006

FRANCE HAS A LONG HISTORY in Lebanon, a country it administered under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1943 and whose elite is bilingual in French and Arabic. France also has a history with Hezbollah, going back to the group’s beginnings more than twenty years ago.
In order to appreciate why French president Jacques Chirac is so far hanging tough for the disarming of Hezbollah in the present crisis, it is useful to cast a backward glance. For those 241 U.S. servicemen blown up in their barracks by Hezbollah on October 23, 1983, were not the only Western soldiers to die in Beirut at the hands of the Islamists that day.

A good place to begin the story is 1978, when France contributed troops to UNIFIL, a United Nations force created to monitor the Lebanese-Israeli border. After a long series of Palestinian cross-border raids killing Israelis, the Israeli army had crossed into Lebanon and pushed the Palestine Liberation Organization north of the Litani River. UNIFIL’s job was to police the peace. The peace didn’t last. In 1982, after another Israeli incursion, some 800 French troops joined an equal number of U.S. Marines and 400 Italian troops to supervise the evacuation of the PLO from Lebanon and serve, once again, as peacekeepers. The same year, Hezbollah was born.

This new Shiite force created and funded by Iran lost no time in targeting the French in Lebanon. First came a rocket attack on soldiers in April 1983 ; then in August, the hijacking of an Air France jet in Tehran. The hijackers, who belonged to a closely allied pro-Iranian terrorist group, Islamic Amal, demanded France’s withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to French military aid to Iraq (then at war with Iran), and the liberation of Lebanese prisoners from French jails.

The mastermind of this operation was Hussein Moussaoui, who, for his next trick, attacked the U.S. and French barracks in Beirut, killing not only those 241 U.S. servicemen but also 58 French soldiers. Two weeks later, the DGSE (the French equivalent to the CIA) learned that the Iranian embassy in Beirut had ordered the murder of Gilles Vidal, number two at the French embassy. The DGSE attempted a preemptive strike. They packed 500 kilos of explosives in a French military jeep marked with the Red Cross emblem and parked it next to the Iranian embassy. The trigger failed, so the French agents tried to ignite the explosives with bazooka shots, but this also failed. The Iranians discovered the jeep and with it proof of French responsibility.

The next day, Tehran pointed the finger at France. An influential member of the Iranian parliament, Hojatoleslam Mohammed Ali Mohavedi Kermani, addressing that body, taunted : « The French people are so scared that they could not find anyone ready to martyr himself with their rigged Jeep operation against the Iranian embassy in Beirut. Only the agents of Hezbollah are capable of doing such things. »

It was war. In retaliation for the barracks attack, France bombed the Islamic Amal and Hezbollah camp in Baalbek. The success of this operation is still debated. While some insist no terrorists were killed, a secret report to President François Mitterrand (subsequently made public) listed more than 20 Lebanese Shiite militants dead (39 according to Lebanese forces), along with 12 Iranian « advisers. » The Ayatollah Khomeini denounced France as a « terrorist state. »

Iran’s revenge was not slow in coming. Hezbollah bombed the French embassy in Kuwait on December 12, then killed ten French soldiers in Lebanon.

On December 21, after a bloody truck bomb attack on a French position, the Islamic Jihad (another name for Hezbollah) claimed responsibility and gave France ten days to leave Lebanon or suffer reprisals. On the 23rd, Paris expelled six Iranian « diplomats » suspected of terrorist ties. And on December 31, Islamic Jihad made good on its threat by bombing simultaneously the Marseilles train station and the high speed Paris- Marseilles train, killing four.

In 1984, to Hezbollah’s great satisfaction, French troops left Lebanon for good. Nevertheless, Iran again ordered Hezbollah to target France, mostly because of French support for Saddam Hussein. Between March 1985 and January 1987, Hezbollah took 16 French citizens hostage in Lebanon, most of them journalists and diplomats. Some remained in captivity for as long as three years, and one was murdered.

Boasting of Iran’s sponsorship of these activities, Sheikh Fadlallah, « spiritual » leader of Hezbollah, was quoted in the French daily Libération as saying : « France is standing in front of a locked vault. There are three keys. The smallest is the Lebanese one. So even if I were holding your countrymen, I could not free them by myself. My little key is not enough. The Syrian key is larger. But it is not enough, either. You need to get the third key, that of Iran. »

In addition to kidnappings, Iran, working through Hezbollah, orchestrated a terror campaign in the streets of France between December 1985 and September 1986 that killed 13 and injured hundreds. Alain Marsaud, head of the French counterterrorism unit, summed up the purpose of the campaign this way : « Iran, the sponsor of the attacks, used a Lebanon-based Hezbollah network plus a Maghrebi logistics cell to convince France to change its foreign policy. »

In fact, the Tunisian mastermind of the 1986 attacks, Fouad Ali Saleh, was close to many of Hezbollah’s top leaders. He had spent three years studying in Qom, Iran, under Ayatollah Khomeini. Upon his arrest, Saleh stated : « Islam’s stronghold is Iran. Your country, helping Iraq fight Iran, is an enemy. . . . Our main goal is to bring France back to reason by violent actions. »

The DST, the French equivalent of the FBI, noted in its final report to Prime Minister Chirac : « Nothing could have been decided without the blessing of either Iranian parliament president Rafsanjani or Ayatollah Montazeri. »

The 1990s were comparatively uneventful, but in February 2000, left-wing prime minister Lionel Jospin described Hezbollah as a « terrorist » group during a press conference in Israel. The French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, traveling with Jospin, whispered to him : « You went a little too far there ! » Whereupon President Chirac angrily reminded Jospin that the president shapes France’s foreign policy, not the prime minister. Obviously, Chirac, remembering the bombings and kidnappings of the 1980s, did not want to provoke Hezbollah. Which is why, despite Hezbollah’s blood-soaked pedigree, Chirac invited Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s secretary general, to attend the Francophone Summit in Beirut in October 2002.

But on December 17, 2003, Chirac’s semi-good relationship with Hezbollah came crashing down. By supporting the ban on the hijab—the headscarf worn by some Muslim women—in France’s public schools, Chirac incurred the wrath of Sheikh Fadlallah. In a letter to Chirac, Fadlallah threatened « likely complications » if the ban were passed, which it was in 2004.

In recent years, there has been some equivocation in French policy towards Hezbollah. Thus, in May 2004, the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, called Hezbollah mostly a « social » organization. Furthermore, Levitte argued that there was no reason to put the group on the European Union’s terrorist list.

Nevertheless, in August 2004, France and the United States cosponsored U.N. Resolution 1559 calling for the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the disarming of militias including Hezbollah, although the French initially hedged on the second point, stressing that Hezbollah could be disarmed only by the Lebanese authorities.

And at home, France took some unilateral actions against Hezbollah. Notably, in December 2004, France banned Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s virulently anti-Semitic and propagandistic television channel, though it did so only under tremendous pressure from outraged French politicians and members of the public. The hate speech common on Al-Manar could no longer be ignored in light of the tough French laws on anti-Semitism. The real tipping point in French policy, though, was the murder on February 14, 2005, of Rafik Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon and a close friend of Jacques Chirac.

France reacted by adopting a tougher stand towards Hezbollah. On August 29, Chirac, addressing French ambassadors, stated that every aspect of Resolution 1559 must be enforced, and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy reiterated this a few days later in an interview with the newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. Minister of European Affairs Catherine Colonna went so far as to condemn Hezbollah’s « illegal and violent actions » against Israel.

Only on the matter of putting Hezbollah on the E.U.’s list of terrorist organizations has France continued to drag its feet. Hezbollah is a political party, say the French, and to declare it a terrorist organization could destabilize Lebanon. Yet France is edging toward linking the T-word with Hezbollah. Gérard Araud, French ambassador to Israel, declared on September 27 that France wants to give Hezbollah « a share in the democratic process and to understand that in this democratic process there’s no place for weapons and for terrorism. » He went on to say that putting Hezbollah on the terrorist list would change nothing but would play into the hands of the Arab world, which would see in this action « an American-Zionist plot. » France « does not want to give them that pleasure. »

Then last year, Iran threatened to reactivate its deadly proxy, Hezbollah, if France were to take a harsher stance against it at the U.N. Security Council. This may explain why President Chirac delivered a speech on terrorism on January 19, 2006, in which he declared that in case of a terrorist attack against French allies (most likely the Gulf monarchies) and/or national interests (including oil facilities), the French response might be nuclear. The message was clearly intended for Iran—and Hezbollah.

Since the current fighting in Lebanon began on July 12, after Hezbollah fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two more, France’s reactions have been a mixed bag. While Chirac has criticized Israel for using « disproportionate force, » he has also said there is « no other long-term solution » than to disarm Hezbollah « as soon as possible. »

While visiting Haifa on July 23, Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy had to take cover from Hezbollah-launched Katyusha rockets, an event that may have reinforced France’s resolve. Said Douste-Blazy, « The first condition for a cease-fire is of course the disarming of Hezbollah. » The war of words continues. Now let’s see what France does.

Sources complémentaires: voir aussi le documentaire franco-britannique présenté le 14 novembre 2001 par Arte (« La République atomique » de David Carr-Brown et Dominique Lorentz)