France to await US congressional decision on Syria

France will wait for its parliament and the US Congress to consider possible military action on Syria before making a decision about whether to launch strikes against Bashar Assad's regime, President Francois Hollande's office said.
The comments from an official in the French president's office came yesterday as the world reacted to word from President Barack Obama that he believes the United States should respond with force over an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime, but that he has decided to put the issue before the US Congress first.
France, under Hollande and his Socialist government, has been the most vocal and visible country to show willingness to join the United States in military action against Syria's regime following the suspected chemical weapons attack in rebel-held or contested areas last week. The US claims the attack killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 children, marking a grave and intolerable escalation in Syria's two-year civil war that has left 100,000 dead.

Before his speech about Syria outside the White House on yesterday, Obama explained his decision to Hollande in a phone call, the official in the French presidency said on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorised to be publicly named according to presidential policy. Hollande told Obama that he already had decided to convene France's parliament on Wednesday to take up a debate about Syria.
The two presidents "reaffirmed their joint willingness to act," and have an "absolute and shared conviction" that Assad's regime was behind the chemical weapons attack, the official said.
Unlike in Britain, Hollande does not need the permission of parliament to order France to intervene militarily.

Britain's parliament on Thursday rejected efforts by Prime Minister David Cameron to have British forces possibly take part in military action against Syria.
In his speech, Obama said the UN Security Council "has been completely paralysed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable. As a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to Congress, and undoubtedly, they were impacted by what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week when the Parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the prime minister supported taking action.