Jihadist president of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Paris on Wednesday for meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The President of the new post-Assad Syrian government has made his first official trip to Europe in power, arriving in Paris on Wednesday afternoon. Macron’s spokesman said the talks would focus on a “free, stable, sovereign Syria that respects all components of its society”, fighting terrorism, and regional stability.
The Elysée Palace insisted it was not being naïve in inviting the Syrian and would not be complacent in talks as it pushed for protections for civilians.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa is former member of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State now leads al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which leads the claimed “interim” government of Syria. Despite the pedigree of the government and its leading figures — its ruling cabinet includes United Nations-sanctioned terrorist Anas Hasan Khattab — many Western nations have rushed to legitimise post-Assad Syria, not least because it offers some hope of ending the migrant crisis that has been poison to centrist politics across Europe for a decade.
The leader of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that headed a lightning rebel offensive snatching Damascus from government control, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is welcomed by supporters before addressing a crowd at the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque on December 8, 2024. Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, gave a speech as the crowd chanted “Allahu akbar (God is greatest),” a video shared by the rebels on their Telegram channel showed. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP) (Photo by ABDULAZIZ KETAZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite the claims that al-Sharaa is the face of a more moderate and inclusive Syria, there have been claims of massacres since he came to power amid the Alawite and Druze minority communities. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pushing particularly hard to get sanctions against Syria lifted.
Al-Sharaa himself is still subject to a United Nations terrorism sanctions travel ban and France had to apply to the United Nations for an exemption to arrange the visit to Paris.
Rockstar of the French right Marion Marechal, the niece of Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and the leader of her own political party Identity-Freedom (IDL) said welcoming Ahmed Al-Sharaa was Macron’s “handshake of shame”. The IDL said in a separate statement that rolling out the red carpet was a “betrayal of all victims of jihadism”.
Marine Le Pen herself called it a folly to receive a leader who is a former terrorist and “members of organizations that want to attack France”
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