Abstract

In May 2025,  the French government became the first Western country to roll out the red carpet for Ahmed al-Shaara (known under his nom de guerre as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), the self-declared interim president of Syria after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. (Le Monde, 2025).

By welcoming al-Shaara, the French are motivated to exert influence in one of their former colonies and to counter Turkish influence. However, the two main challenges France will face are the extent to which the HTS government is genuine in renouncing connections to terrorist groups and the impact of US sanctions.

The French Mandate in Syria:

After World War I, the British and French carved out spheres of influence from former Ottoman territories, as outlined in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Under this arrangement, the French were assigned modern-day Lebanon and Syria, while the British received modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine, collectively known as the “Mandate System.” Following this arrangement, the French ruled Syria from 1923 to 46, and French colonial rule created the foundations for the sectarianisation of Syria. To maintain control and exploit preexisting tensions (the Alawite and Druze fear of Sunni persecution), the French propped up the Alawite minority in their institutions (Beauchamp, 2015). In fact, “until 1942, and except for three years from 1936 to 1939, the Alawites and Druze remained separate from the rest of unified Syria” (Trivedi, 2016). Eventually, the French left Syria in 1946, but the seeds of sectarianism accelerated after the Baathist coup in 1963, which put the Alawite al-Assad family in charge of the country until 2024. 

France’s Role in the Syrian Civil War:

From the outset, the official French position was that the Assad regime had to go. During the 2011 G8 (now G7) summit in France, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that Bashar al-Assad should either allow for a peaceful transition of power or leave, and subsequently closed their embassy in Syria that same year (Tayel, 2011). Later, in 2012, President François Hollande insisted that Assad’s departure was a prerequisite for any meaningful political reform (France 24, 2012). With the stated desire of removing Assad from power, France, along with many other countries, started supplying arms to the Syrian rebels; however, in 2014, Hollande insisted that only the “non-Islamist” (moderate) rebels were receiving aid (Nijkerk, 2019, pp. 56). 

However, due to the rise of Daesh and Russia’s intervention, France’s ability to shape events was limited. Thus, most Western countries unofficially accepted the fact that Assad would remain in power. However, when the Assad regime collapsed in December 2024, President Emmanuel Macron posted on X, “The barbaric state has fallen. At last,” and, “I pay tribute to the Syrian people, to their courage, to their patience. In this moment of uncertainty, I send them my wishes for peace, freedom, and unity” (Le Monde, 2024). 

Since then, the French have taken numerous steps to legitimize the new government, including reopening its embassy, sending French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to Syria, and Macron meeting with Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Al-Shaara (France 24, 2025b; Reuters, 2024). 

Paris’s official narrative was that the meeting was intended to convey to Damascus the importance of ensuring that a new Syrian government respected the rights of all its citizens (Le Monde, 2025).

However, the two primary driving factors behind these French actions are their influence in a former colony and their efforts to counter Turkish influence. 

Motivation #1: Remain Relevant in a Former Colony

One of France’s motivations to engage with the new Syrian government is to (re)assert itself as a key player in former colonial regions. Aside from its membership as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and its status as a nuclear-armed state, another way France claims its status as a puissance mondiale (global power) is the immense influence it has on its former colonies, especially in Françafrique (France’s former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa). 

However, ever since the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, France has lost immense influence over its former colonies (Jonah, 2025). As Thierry Vircoulon, a researcher at the Institut français des relations internationales’ Africa program, stated, “The withdrawal of the French troops and the end of the French military presence in Africa is a symbol of that collapse” (Bryant, 2025). Given the loss of influence in Africa, France seeks to regain influence in the Middle East, specifically in Lebanon and Syria. 

Motivation #2: Counter Turkish Influence in Syria 

Another French motivation in engaging with the interim Syrian government is to counter the influence of Türkiye in a post-Assad Syria. Ever since tensions between Ankara and Paris escalated over the dispute over the Prophet Mohammed’s cartoon and the beheading of Samuel Paty, what started as a personal rivalry between Emmanuel Macron and Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan has now manifested itself into a broader geopolitical rivalry in various regions (Jones, 2020). 

During the Libyan civil war, France backed Khalifa Haftar, while Turkey supported the internationally recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj (Demirdas, 2020). In the South Caucasus, the French have supplied arms to the Armenians while the Turks vehemently backed the Azeris. Even in Syria, France and Türkiye clashed, as the French have assisted the Syrian Kurdish group, the YPG, which Ankara considers to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (Jabbour, 2021, p. 6). Considering the immense amount of Turkish influence behind the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian Islamist group evolving from Al-Qaeda’s former affiliate, France seeks to shape a post-Assad Syria to limit Ankara’s influence. 

However, two challenges France will face are Al-Shaara’s links with terrorist organizations and sanctions. 

Challenge #1: Al-Sharaa’s Past Links with Al-Qaeda

It is crucial to keep in mind that the new Syrian President, al-Sharaa, who has been in office since 2025, used to be a member of Al-Qaeda. During the American occupation of Iraq, al-Shaara was one of the many foreign terrorists fighting the Americans and eventually ended up in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Later, he moved to Syria to fight the Assad government with the support of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who later became the founder of Daesh. He later founded the organization Jabhat al-Nusra that pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, but supposedly broke off in 2016 (Kourdi &Tawfeeq, 2025). In fact, until December 2024, the US had put in place a 10 million USD bounty, and the HTS continues to be a designated terrorist organization (Taddonio, 2025; Lennon, 2024). 

However, since taking control of the government in December 2024, Al-Shaara and HTS have insisted that they have broken all links with transnational terrorist groups and argue that HTS was focused on overthrowing the Assad government, not supporting terrorist attacks. Additionally, Al-Shaara has insisted that the group is a “moderate” and argued that Syria’s religious minorities will be safeguarded. However, many individuals, such as Richard Ghazal, insist that the claims of being a “moderate” group are not true, by pointing out the recent attacks against Syrian Christians and Alawites (Avetisyan, 2025; Nakhoul et al., 2025). 

The French government’s decision to welcome al-Sharaa prompted criticism from other French politicians. Marine le Pen accused Macron of meeting with a “jihadist,” and Laurent Wauquiez said, “We don't welcome leaders who are former terrorists and members of organisations that want to attack France” (France 24, 2025b). 

Hence, it remains to be seen if the new government’s rhetoric of being “moderate” matches its actions in the coming months or is merely a public relations tactic. 

Challenge #2: Sanctions

Despite the recent 30-year contract between the French logistics firm CMA CGM, sanctions remain a problem (Reuters, 2025). While the European Union removed sanctions on Syrian banks, a challenge is with American sanctions (Atlantic Council, 2025). Although American President Donald Trump announced that the United States will remove sanctions, it is more challenging to implement (DePetris, 2025). While the American President has the authority to waive and suspend sanctions, given that the sanctions on Syria were imposed through a Congressional mandate, only Congress can end the sanctions (Yacoubian, 2025). Already, individuals like Lindsey Graham have expressed concern about the sanctions being lifted, insisting that it should be coordinated with Congress and American allies, referring to Israel (Reals & Walsh, 2025). 

Aside from American sanctions, the UN Security Council maintains sanctions against some members of the HTS government. However, one of the main reasons for a reluctance to remove sanctions on these individuals is the concern of the HTS links to terrorism, as explained before. Despite the rhetoric emanating from Washington and Brussels, concerns persist regarding HTS links to various foreign fighters (Drevon et al., 2025). Hence, it is likely that the removal of sanctions will not have much impact unless the situation improves substantially for any firm interested in investing in the Syrian market.