March 28, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1429

PARIS, March 27: Leaders of France’s opposition Socialist party criticised President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday for offering to send more troops to Afghanistan and for making the controversial announcement in the British parliament.

Sarkozy made a rare address by a foreign head of state to Britain’s parliament on Wednesday and promised to dispatch additional soldiers to fight the Taliban if Nato backed its proposal for a broader, coordinated Afghan strategy.

France already has some 1,500 troops in Afghanistan and the Socialists have demanded a parliamentary debate in Paris before any more soldiers are deployed.

“What surprised me, perhaps shocked me, is that Nicolas Sarkozy talked about France’s commitments in Afghanistan before British parliamentarians when there hasn’t been the slightest debate before French parliamentarians,” said Segolene Royal, the defeated Socialist candidate in the 2007 elections.“I am not in favour of any strengthening of France’s forces in Afghanistan in the current context when one doesn’t know the risks they will face or what guarantees have been taken to protect our soldiers,” she told RTL radio.The national secretary of the Socialist party, Francois Hollande, also came out forcibly against the move.

“I consider that any additional deployment of French forces to Afghanistan is an error,” Hollande told LCI television.

Sarkozy is expected to give full details of the French initiative at a Nato summit in Romania next month.French officials speaking off the record have indicated that Paris is ready to send several hundred combat troops to eastern Afghanistan to battle Al Qaeda and Taliban forces, but say Sarkozy wants allies to define a clear policy for the country.

In particular, he wants guarantees that allies will exit Afghanistan together rather than unilaterally and will do more to bolster civilian aide programmes.

Under the French constitution, a president can send troops into combat zones without the approval of parliament, but ministers have promised the Socialists a debate on Afghanistan.—Reuters