France Seeks Financial Help From it's European Partners To Support It's Military Interventions In Africa

Taking Responsibility: France Seeks Help for Africa Intervention -- Spiegel Online

Despite its financial troubles, France remains committed to an expensive military intervention in the Central African Republic. Now the country is looking to its European partners, chiefly Germany, to support the operation.

Bernard Kouchner can't get the images of massacred women and children out of his mind. The co-founder of the organization Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, was in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, when some 800,000 people were killed in less than 100 days.

Later, as the French foreign minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, Kouchner fought for what he calls the "right to humanitarian intervention." In Rwanda the international community stood idly by while the slaughter continued. But France has learned from its mistakes, and Kouchner now says that he is filled with "pride" that 1,600 French soldiers marched into the Central African Republic last week. "The population wants us to help them," he argues. In the capital of Bangui alone, up to 500 civilians were killed within just a few days. "We cannot allow that," Kouchner says.

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My Comment: Europe will probably provide some assistance .... but I suspect that it will be done with reluctance and a great deal of hesitation.