France warns Syria peace ‘compromised’

France: France warned Wednesday that it may push for a resolution allowing the use of force in Syria and said it wanted UN monitors to deploy within a fortnight as the peace plan was “strongly compromised”.

“Things are not going well, the (Kofi) Annan plan is strongly compromised but there is still a chance for this mediation, on the condition of the rapid deployment of the 300 monitors,” Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

He said he wanted them deployed “within a fortnight, not in three months.” Juppe said that May 5 -- when Annan is to present his next report on the peace process -- would be “a moment of truth”.

If the UN mission “is not working, we cannot continue to accept the defiance of the regime”, he said. He said the international community would have “to move on to another step which we have already started raising with our partners, under Chapter Seven of the United Nations charter.”

A Chapter Seven resolution, which can be imposed by the Security Council if member states think peace is threatened by an act of aggression, authorises foreign powers to take measures including military options.

Juppe pointed out however that such a resolution, which was also mooted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, was unlikely to pass.

“We know well that it would probably face a veto by such or such a member (of the Security Council), but this is one more reason to continue our efforts to explain,” he said.

Russia and China have previously vetoed efforts to strengthen measures against the Syrian regime.

“The Damascus regime does not respect the commitments it made. Repression is continuing.

Monitors cannot work on the ground. This cannot last indefinitely,” Juppe said, after meeting Syrian opposition members.

Juppe said he hoped Russia would draw the right conclusions from Syria's efforts to block the monitors' deployment. AFP