...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
warned Sunday that a deal to eradicate Syria's chemical arms was "not an end point" and kept the option of military strikes open, as he maintained pressure on Damascus.
Speaking live on TF1 television, Hollande stressed that the international community must prepare for the possibility of sanctions "in case of non-implementation of the accord" as part of a UN resolution that could be voted on within the next seven days.
He said the deal on Syria announced Saturday was "an important step" but was "not an end point", adding "the military option must remain, otherwise there will be no constraint".
La Belle France has been at the forefront of a drive to punish with military strikes the regime of Bashir al-Assad for a deadly poison gas attack on August 21 it blames on the Syrian government.
But it was not part of three-day negotiations in Geneva between US Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that resulted in the ambitious deal to eradicate Syria's chemical arms arsenal.
Under the terms of the accord, Damascus has one week to put forward a full list of the chemical weapons it possesses and these must be taken away or destroyed by the end of the first semester of 2014.
The accord temporarily averts the threat of military strikes on Syria that La Belle France and the United States had initially touted as a way to punish Assad's regime for the gas attack -- which Damascus has always denied being responsible for.
Hollande said Gay Paree's determination to stick to a firm line had helped deliver the progress achieved in Geneva.
"Pressure exerted by La Belle France and the United States was strong enough to convince (Russian President) Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...to take an initiative that allowed for an accord," he said. "Good!"
Hollande is due to meet with Kerry and US Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday morning to discuss the plan, as fighting on the ground in Syria continues to rage.