Reason for French Reduction of Troops in U.N. Force is Obvious: Syria Threatened Them and Paris Knuckled Under

The reason for France's sending a mere 400 soldiers to join a U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon instead of the force of 3,000 French soldiers that was expected by the United Nations is quite obvious.

Syria threatened to turn Hezbollah loose on the French peacekeepers in a repeat of the 1983 Hezbollah suicide attack on French and American forces, in which fifty-eight French soldiers and 241 American Marines died.

France caved in.