French President Says Syria's Assad Has To Go [While Obama Leads From Behind!]

Guardian (UK) ^ | June 01, 2012 | SYLVIE CORBET

[Steelfish]

French President Says Syria's Assad Has To Go June 1 2012 SYLVIE CORBET

— France's president said Friday that only the departure of Bashar Assad would end the violence in Syria, saying his regime had acted in an "intolerable way."

Francois Hollande, who was elected in May, again advocated for pressure and sanctions to force out the Syrian leader, continuing France's tough line on the country, where an anti-government uprising has raged for more than a year.

"The regime of Bashar Assad has conducted itself in an unacceptable, intolerable way and has committed acts that disqualify it" from power, Hollande said after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syria's principal backer and protector.

"There is no possible exit from this situation except with the departure of Bashar Assad," he added.

International pressure is mounting on Syria, including condemnation Friday from the United Nation's top human rights body for the massacre last week of more than 100 civilians, apparently at the hands of government troops and pro-regime thugs.

"Sanctions are part of the indispensable and necessary pressure," Hollande added, while recognizing that the country is hurtling toward civil war.

In March, the U.N. put the death toll from the uprising and crackdown at 9,000, but many hundreds more have died since.

Putin ducked a question about sanctions, saying that they were "still not effective."

He also would not be drawn on whether Assad should go, saying only that a negotiated solution that was acceptable to the Syrian people would be acceptable to Russia.

[Venturer]

Getting rid of Assad will not stop the killing in Syria.

It will just exchange the killer for another group of killers and perhaps change the people getting killed.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Steelfish, related:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2890560/posts

[Gay State Conservative]

Didn’t we just learn in Egypt that the bad guys often masquerade as the good guys? How long will it be before the Christians of *Syria* are warned to either convert to the Religion of Pieces or leave,as the Christians of Egypt recently were?

[Cincinna]

Thanks, Civ
Hollande is an incompetent, inexperienced Socialist. In office less than a month, he us ready to lead France into war in the Middle East.
Assad is far from ideal, but is preferable on all points to what would replace him- an Islamist regime.
Sarko at the very least was playing chess, while this pauvre con is playing Chinese checkers.
The French won’t go for it anyway; the coffers are empty, and they have almost all become brainwashed euro-pacifists.

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