With eye on home issues, May, Macron back Trump

Leaders of Britain, France had political reasons for support.

PARIS — For President Emmanuel Macron of France, it was a chance to make good on an explicit promise to punish Syria for its suspected use of chemical weapons. For Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, it was a rare and welcome opportunity to support the United States on an issue that President Donald Trump has not made radioactive with the British public.

The two European leaders may have had their own distinct political reasons to back Trump’s decision to order a cruise-missile attack on Syria early Saturday. But the decision was made much easier by the accumulating evidence of banned chemical weapons and the circumscribed nature of the attack — a one-time onslaught on three major sites linked to chemical weapons manufacture.

Macron said in a statement that the suspected chemical weapons attack April 7 that killed dozens of men, women and children in Douma, Syria, was a “total violation of international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

For Macron, the move also had the salutary effect of shoring up his position as a broker between Russia and the United States and the European Union. Just hours before launching the strike, Macron was on the telephone with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to discuss Syria. And both Macron and his aides have said he still plans to go ahead with a state visit to Moscow at the end of May.

At the same time, Macron is trying to reinforce France’s position as an enforcer of international treaties, which includes the Chemical Weapons Convention that 192 countries have signed.

May is in a more precarious position, with a tense standoff developing with Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, with a weapons-grade nerve agent. May has been under pressure to respond forcefully to Moscow for the attack, which exposed hundreds of citizens in southwest England to the deadly substance.

On Saturday, the British leader described the airstrikes in Syria as “right and legal,” drawing an explicit distinction between those and the poisoning of the Skripals — the first use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II.

May also benefited from the timing of the airstrikes, two days before lawmakers were to return from vacation. While not obligated to consult Parliament, she may have felt constrained to do so and could easily have lost a vote on a strike. Another imperative for Britain was to reciprocate the support that London has received from the United States in the dispute with Russia over the poisoning.

“I don’t think she had much choice,” said Justin Bronk, a research fellow for air power at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security focused research institute in London. “By announcing the strikes through Twitter, President Trump made this a personal call to action with his own image and credibility at stake, and he’s an openly transactional president.”

Britain also wants to prove its use as an ally to Trump at a time when its international influence is under question because of its withdrawal from the European Union, and as it hopes to strengthen trade ties with the United States.

On Saturday, as reaction to the strikes rolled in from around the world, Trump wrote on Twitter: “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”

Opinion polls suggested that the British public’s support for strikes was lukewarm. So in backing Trump’s airstrikes without seeking prior approval from lawmakers, May took a political risk, albeit one that should be manageable unless the conflict escalates.

The prime minister did come in for criticism. The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, criticized May, arguing that “bombs won’t save lives or bring about peace.”

Macron, for his part, faced criticism on the far left and the far right for his decision to join the attack on Syrian targets. The leader of the far left France Insoumise party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accused Macron on Twitter of attacking Syria without proof of chemical weapons use and without a U.N. mandate, an EU agreement or a vote of the French Parliament.

“This is a North American adventure of revenge, an irresponsible escalation,” Mélenchon said.

On the extreme right, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, said France had lost a chance to “appear on the international scene as an independent power.” The party’s deputy leader, Nicolas Bay, called Macron “a vassal” of the United States.