Afstan: French faltering?

This is really distressing; it will certainly encourage the anti-mission people here, especially in Quebec.

France has no intention of playing a long-term military role in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Friday, hours before a Taliban deadline for a pullout to save French hostages expired...

Douste-Blazy, who supports right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, told Europe 1 radio that Sarkozy was right to say he saw no long-term presence in Afghanistan for the roughly 1,100 French forces stationed there.

"I think he is totally right. It goes in the same direction as the policy of President Jacques Chirac," Douste-Blazy said, adding that France had already withdrawn 200 special forces troops before the hostage crisis.

"We have no vocation to stay, occupying a country in the long-term. Moreover it is against France's values of respecting sovereignty, national independence and territorial integrity," Douste-Blazy added.

The Taliban captured two French aid workers in southwestern Afghanistan at the start of April and has threatened to kill them unless France withdraws its troops from the country as one of the conditions for their release.

The Taliban gave France a week on April 20 to pull its forces out of the country...

Sure looks like a form of bargaining with terrorists to me. And if the French do withdraw fairly soon it will be a disaster for NATO as an alliance, as well as for the ISAF mission. One can just imagine the encouragement it would give those Germans either opposed to or unenthusiastic about Germany's (non-combat) participation in ISAF.

As for Ségolène Royal:

Earlier this month, in discussing the fate of two Frenchmen held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, she called for UN-imposed penalties for regimes like the Taliban, as if unaware that the Islamic extremists had been ousted from power militarily after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

When the interviewer pointed out that the Taliban were no longer in power, Royal ignored him and moved on...

Vache sacrée!

Update: The Taliban give the French more time:

The Taliban on Saturday freed a French aid worker who was kidnapped more than three weeks ago along with another French citizen and three Afghan colleagues...

"The French government has to stop giving military support to the Afghan government, and French forces should leave Afghanistan," he [purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi] said. "When the French government withdraws its forces from our country, then we will negotiate the release of this French man and three Afghans as well."..

It appears the Taliban have also set a new deadline:

Speaking to Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location, he [another Taliban spokesperson Qari Mohammad Yousuf, or is he the same person?] said a deadline for France to meet the Taliban's demands for the release of the remaining four hostages had been extended a week...