| Leading from behind. |
The United States will support La Belle France if it intervenes militarily in its former colony Mali, where Islamist forces control the north of the country, a top U.S. diplomat said in an interview Tuesday."We back La Belle France and if it decides to intervene militarily, it can count on the support of the United States," Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon told Le Monde newspaper.
Gordon however declined to elaborate on what form that support might take.
French President Francois Hollande
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it...
promised Tuesday that his country would provide logistical, political and material support for a U.N.-backed African military intervention in Mali.
La Belle France is pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution which will authorize west African countries to establish a force capable of wresting back control of northern Mali from Islamic radicals.
Hollande's strong statement of support for the creation of such a force was made following talks in Gay Paree with U.N. Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, who said he shared the French government's concern over the growing influence of Islamists in huge parts of north Africa.