Normally a man of consensus and caution, President Francois Hollande’s frank comments in a new book written by two journalists is causing shockwaves in France.
“A President Shouldn’t Say That …” has exposed the inner workings of Hollande’s troubled presidency and his views on Islamic veils, Barack Obama and his private life.
In the book, Hollande criticized his political rivals as well as other state leaders — including President Barack Obama. In a 2015 interview recounted in the book, he explained he felt abandoned by his US ally in August 2013 when Obama informed him at the last minute he would not agree on an immediate military intervention in Syria in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad’s government.
President Barack Obama, left, meets with President Francois Hollande of France in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, November 24, 2015. (AP/Andrew Harnik)
“I don’t know what would have happened if we had carried out strikes … What I can say is that we did not carry out strikes, and there’s Daesh,” says Hollande, who used the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. Hollande suggested that IS might have been weakened by such strikes. Since 2013, extremists with links to IS have repeatedly attacked France, with deadly consequences.
— AP
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