French MPs say presidency, ministry informed ahead of Syria visit

The French MPs who visited Syria last week claim they informed the authorities of their plans, although President François Hollande condemned the trip and the meeting that three of them held with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

French Socialist MP Gérard Bapt wikipedia

“We are parliamentarians – and it’s not just us three – who are concerned by the problems of the Middle East,” Socialist MP Gérard Bapt told RFI on Friday. "This journey allowed is to go to a side that is not covered by the media.”

Although he was not one of the three politicians who met Assad, Bapt is a member of Hollande’s Socialist Party and faces disciplinary action after Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the MPs were guilty of “misconduct”.

But he insisted that he discussed the visit with officials from the Elysée presidential palace and the foreign affairs ministry.

“It was one of the commitments I made before the diplomatic advisers of the Elysée and the Quai d’Orsay not to meet Syrian officials implicated in military activity,” he said. “I stayed at the hotel during that visit [to Assad].”

One of the three who did meet Assad, centrist François Zocchetto, also insisted that the authorities had been informed, saying that he head told Senate president Gérard Larcher and that Bapt had told the presidency and the ministry.

The Syrian president was hoping for Western help in fighgting the Islamic State armed group and al-Qaeda, he said.

“Bashar al-Assad is somebody very reserved, he doesn’t open up readily,” he told Radio Classique. “He said that he expected not to remain isolated against the terrorist threat.”

Syria is “the last remaining secular state in the Middle East”, he added. “This secular state could vanish tomorrow … because today there is no moderate Syrian oppsition.”