Hollande under fire from all sides for Syria stance

A French satirical television show this week portrayed President Francois Hollande left holding US President Barack Obama's coat while the American leader and President Vladimir Putin of Russia hold private talks. Hollande gullibly concludes he is playing a key role.

Later in the show, Les Guignols de L'Info, Hollande is seen interrupting a visit to a school to ask Obama's permission to use the bathroom.

If Hollande ever thought that his decision to stand steadfast alongside the United States in backing a retaliatory strike against Syria would give him new stature on the global stage, the last week has been a sharp shock.

Public opinion is running strongly against him; a poll published at the weekend in the conservative daily newspaper Le Figaro showed about two-thirds of the French opposed to military action against Syria. There are growing demands that he grant Parliament a vote on the matter.

The White House is doing its best to buttress Hollande - US Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit this weekend, used a televised appearance to make the case, in French, that failure to act would be akin to the Munich Agreement of 1938, in which Britain and France sought to appease Hitler. But the French president is learning, like British leaders before him, that close alignment with Washington carries as much risk of looking weak as opportunity to look strong.