Les operations militaires exterieures

In: Pouvoirs: revue française d'études constitutionnelles et politiques, Heft 125, S. 55-67

Abstract

Foreign military operations, that used to be legal and legitimate in the past, have seen their meaning change totally during the Twentieth Century after the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. They have not disappeared but have taken a new meaning and significance. For France, they represent a way to continue existing as a major power though it tries to give its foreign operations a mission of general interest. It seems necessary that they should be launched within a legal and multilateral framework and that they should appear legitimate to public opinion. Yet foreign operations that last too long risk being contested from within the country and resisted, even militarily, from outside. Adapted from the source document.