When 42-year-old French officer Arnaud Frion was killed by a drone strike on the Mala Qara Kurdish base near Erbil on Thursday evening, the attack raised the question that goes beyond the incident itself: what does it mean for France’s strategy in the region? Could it push Paris toward greater military involvement in Iraq and the Middle East, or even into the ongoing operation against Iran?
Euronews spoke with two French experts for some analysis.
Frédéric Encel is a geopolitical scholar specialising in Middle Eastern affairs and Western security alliances. His latest book, “La guerre mondiale n’aura pas lieu” (“There will be no world war”), challenges doomsday narratives on global conflict.
And Jean-Marc Vigilant is an Associate Research Fellow at IRIS (Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques) and a retired French Air and Space Force Major General. He commanded French forces during Operation Chammal in Iraq and Syria.
Did Iran order the strike?
“Of course, there’s a link to Iran. Iran reproaches France for its ‘benevolent neutrality’ in the US-Israeli coalition,” explains Frédéric Encel. Tehran also holds Paris accountable for its defence alliance with the UAE and for having intercepted Iranian missiles crossing Jordanian airspace en route to Israel in 2024 and 2025.
Jean-Marc Vigilant shares the view that the link is there: “What they are trying to do is strike American interests in the region, and Israel of course, but also the countries that host American forces. And now they are extending this to the allies of those countries, including France.”
He explains that Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq have regularly targeted coalition forces, including French forces deployed as part of Chammal, a French military operation launched in 2014 in Iraq and Syria to help curtail the expansion of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and support the Iraqi Army.
France has been the second-largest contributor to the coalition since 2014 with land, air and naval deployments. In coordination with the Iraqi government, the ongoing Operation Chammal provides military support to local forces fighting IS, as well as training and advisory missions.
“All the Chammal forces that were deployed in the region, and in particular in Iraq, suffered from this, especially in Baghdad,” recalls Vigilant, Jean-Marc Vigilant, who personally commanded French troops there in 2018-2019. “Erbil is more recent, but in Baghdad, we all endured fire from pro-Iranian Shia militias on Iraqi soil. So this is nothing new.”
Iran’s strategy, he argues, is one of deliberate escalation across all fronts in response to strikes on its territory. The goal is to drive a wedge between Gulf states and European countries on one side and Israel and the US on the other, pressuring the former to lean on the latter to stop attacks on Iran.
However, Vigilant notes this strategy has backfired: “By conducting these all-out actions, they have actually achieved the opposite: they have created an almost united front against them. Because by deliberately attacking countries that had no intention of attacking them — like the Emirates and Qatar — they now have a unified bloc facing them.”
Is France now a target?
On Friday, the pro-Iranian Iraqi group Ashab al-Kahf, while stopping short of claiming responsibility for Thursday’s attack on the French base, issued a statement warning that “all French interests in Iraq and in the region” would now be targeted, including ground troops and the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
Encel takes the threat seriously and warns it may not stop at Iraq’s borders. “Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, organised attacks against France as early as the 1980s, not only in Lebanon, but on French soil,” he recalls. “So unfortunately, that can absolutely happen again. Attempted attacks could be renewed, either over there — in Iraq, Lebanon or elsewhere — or in France itself.”
Vigilant acknowledges a clear continuum between external theatres of operation and the national territory. “Obviously, the risk is there, the threat is there. And it was anticipated from the very beginning of the Israeli-American strikes, since the Interior Minister ordered an increase in the alert level across our country, at all sensitive sites,” says Vigilant.
“So the risk is real, the threat is present. And if the Iranians see an opportunity, I am certain they will take it. So we must all be collectively vigilant and adopt a strong defensive posture.”
The threat posed by Ashab al-Kahf
Founded in 2019, Ashab al-Kahf, which rebranded itself in 2024 as Kataib Sarkhat al-Quds, is a shadowy Iraqi Shia group that openly backs Iran while targeting both Iraqi authorities and Kurdish forces. Analysts consider it part of a broader network of Iranian-backed militias that Tehran can activate across the region, known for quick strikes using small, mobile units.
Their attacks on Western troops in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan have intensified sharply. According to local authorities, the region was struck by dozens of drone and missile attacks in a single day, including a hit on an Italian base on Thursday, though without casualties.
Jean-Marc Vigilant believes they clearly have the means to threaten French and American forces in the region.
“My personal experience is that at the time, they were firing rockets — more precisely, from pickup trucks — conducting indirect fire on coalition camps. And since they were in vehicles, as soon as they had fired, they left, which made it impossible to catch them. We do have counter-battery radars capable of detecting where a shot came from based on the trajectory of the incoming rocket. But very often, even the Iraqi forces we were cooperating with to catch them had great difficulty tracking down the shooters.“
More recently, these groups have also deployed drones, adding a new and significant dimension to their strike capability.
France’s next move
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that France is not at war with any country, describing its role in the Middle East as purely defensive. Calling the strike that killed adjudant-chef Arnaud Frion “unacceptable,” he stressed that French troops were operating within an international coalition against terrorism and in support of Iraq’s sovereignty.
Macron declined to outline any possible response or “war scenarios” but what could France now do?
Encel describes France as “the only European state capable of inflicting serious” damage on pro-Iranian groups. “You can well imagine that France, even alongside a few very valuable allies like the British, cannot by itself destroy the entirety of the pro-Iranian militias. IS, for that matter, was not completely destroyed militarily either. But France does have the means and here it is, frankly, the only Western state besides the United States, and certainly the only European state, that is able to inflict very serious costs, to retaliate against the terrorist manoeuvres of pro-Iranian groups.”
Yet he does not expect Paris to formally join the US-Israeli operation. Because it was a militia, not Iran itself, that struck French forces, Paris is likely to target specific groups rather than escalate toward a direct confrontation with Tehran.
“I think France will respond against this particular militia and not necessarily against the state on whose behalf it claims to fight.,” Encel says.
Under a mutual defence treaty signed with France in 2009, the United Arab Emirates could invoke a collective defence clause if it considers itself under attack and Iranian strikes have already killed Emirati nationals. “If the Emirates were to activate that clause, France would be legally obliged to intervene in their defence,” Encel warns.
However he is careful to keep this in perspective. Given the scale of the US-Israeli campaign, a direct French strike on Iran would change little on the ground. “I don’t see how a French strike would add anything.In any case, it would not be decisive.”
Jean-Marc Vigilant notes that France has reaffirmed its purely defensive posture in the region, with two objectives: protecting French nationals and evacuating them if necessary and honouring its defence agreements with allies under attack.
“France will not allow itself to be drawn into a war it did not choose,” says Vigilant. “It is true that to make war, only one party is needed — it only takes one country to declare war — but it takes two to make peace. But in this specific case, France will continue to protect its nationals and defend its interests. And there are many ways to respond to unjustified Iranian aggression. It can be done in several different ways and not only through direct military action.”
