Defection of high-ranking Syrian Tlas confirmed in France

French President Francois Hollande confirmed on Tuesday that Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlas, one of the highest ranking officials to defect from the Syrian regime, is in Paris.

Tlas was reported to have fled Damascus earlier this month, but it’s the first time his presence in France has been confirmed by authorities.

Hollande nodded when asked if Tlas was in the French capital during a press conference with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, but he did not specify where in Paris Tlas was staying.

Tlas’s defection buoyed Western powers and anti-regime activists, who expressed hope that other high-ranking defections would follow.

Last week, Syria’s ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf Fares, followed suit and defected, announcing that he was joining the revolution.

A member of Syria’s opposition National Council, Hassem Hashimi, described Tlas as a powerful figure in the Assad regime. “The defection of Tlas will encourage a lot of similar people to defect as well,” he told The Associated Press in Paris.

Tlas is also the son of the Assad regime’s former long-serving defense minister, Mustafa Tlas, who is also now in Paris. Manaf Tlas’s defection is the first from the president’s inner circle and was described by an Israeli analyst two weeks ago as the gravest blow yet to Assad’s regime.

Tlas and Bashar Assad have been friends since childhood, and the Tlas family, who are Sunni Muslims, have played a critical role in maintaining support for the Alawite Muslim Assads within the Syrian Sunni community. Tlas was a battalion commander in Assad’s elite Republican Guard.

Earlier this month Israel’s Channel 2 news reported that Tlas’s father Mustafa, who was the Syrian army’s chief of staff from 1968-1972, and then served as minister of defense from 1972-2004, had also abandoned Bashar Assad, though more discreetly. “He has slipped quietly away to Paris,” said Channel 2′s Ehud Yaari, a respected Arab affairs analyst.