French MP says no need for UN to back war

Military intervention in Iraq would be “legitimate” even without the approval of the UN Security Council, a French MP said today.

Alain Madelin, a former economy minister from the ruling party, was the first French politician so far to have voiced such a stance.

“Our place is at America’s side,” he said, and compared the Iraq crisis to the situation before intervention in Kosovo.

There, the US and Nato had “intervened at the demand of France, with France, without the OK of the Security Council, arguing that (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic did not fulfil his international obligations.”

Madelin said the case was “10 times more for Saddam Hussein – a dangerous man who has placed himself outside international law.”

“The position by which one would bypass the UN would be legitimate” in the case of Iraq, he said.

But he added that it would still “be better to go via the UN”.

He said he could not imagine France using its Security Council veto in a vote to authorise armed intervention in Iraq.