France is Highly Critical of Tough American Attitude in Lebanon

France dissociated itself today from the tougher American attitude in Lebanon and said its forces will continue to avoid a confrontation with the Druze and Moslem forces in the Shouf mountains.

Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson condemned the American approach, saying that shelling Druze positions in the Shouf “is obviously not the best method to reach a political solution.”

Cheysson, speaking on television today, said France will “never support a Balkanization of the Middle East nor its control by two super-power blocs, one Russian-Syrian and the other American-Israeli.” He said France will continue to oppose the country’s partition, whether into separate geographic units or zones of foreign influence.

The American armed response in the Shouf and around Beirut has been following by French calls for placing the multinational force under United Nations control, Defense Minister Charles Hernu called for the force “to be given a sort of UNIFIL charter, ” a reference to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, stationed in the south of the country, Hernu’s call indicated, French officials said, that the United Nations should now be responsible for the search of a peaceful solution in Lebanon.

France has over 2,200 men stationed in Beirut as part of the multinational force, Most of its troops are professional, veteran fighting men who, according to military observers, form the backbone of the force’s ground troops The French also have a large contingent serving with UNIFIL.

Hernu said the French troops are “soldiers for peace” and will not let themselves be dragged into what France considers to be a local civil war and not, like the Reagan Administration, an invasion by a foreign power.