France Says Damascus Suburb Attack Shows Why Assad Must Go

(Bloomberg) -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that a Syrian government attack that killed hundreds in a Damascus suburb shows that Bashar Al-Assad is increasingly at the enemy of his own people and will have to be removed from power eventually.

“The departure of Bashar al-Assad is not a pre-condition but more than ever he is the enemy of his own people, which means it’s not realistic that he stays as leader when the Syrian conflict ends,” Le Drian said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper released Thursday.

At least 250 civilians, including 58 children, have been killed by bombardments and air strikes in the past three days in Eastern Ghouta, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian war through activists on the ground. Indiscriminate shelling of Damascus by anti-Assad fighters has killed 112 people, including 17 children, since Nov. 16, according to the observatory.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Deen in Paris at markdeen@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Geraldine Amiel

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.