For decades, the Christians of the Levant held a belief that France — “the tender mother,” as it was called — served as their shield. Recently, many prominent Christian figures have raised their voices, accusing Paris and other European capitals of plotting to displace them from their homelands. What has caused such a turnaround and what are the bases of these accusations?

The roots of the protective relationship between France and the Christians of the Levant, particularly Lebanese and Syrian Christians, are deeply engraved in history. France’s role dates back to the era of the Crusades and has been documented throughout the ages. In 1249, the King Louis IX of France had taken it upon himself, through a signed deed, to protect the Maronites. Four centuries later, the king reiterated this undertaking in a letter sent to the Maronite Patriarch in 1649, announcing the safeguard of Maronites. He ordered the consulates and ambassadors of France to the Ottoman Empire to extend their hand to assist the Maronites and protect their interests.

This very same tradition continued throughout the years. In 1861, European countries exerted pressure on the Ottoman Empire to set a special administrative structure, known as the “Protocol of Mutasarrifate”, for minorities in Mount Lebanon. The capitals of the Old Continent were each assigned a minority faction to chaperon: London protected the Druze, Moscow took the Orthodox, Vienna handled the Catholics, while Paris was, naturally, in charge of the Maronites.

Christians, confident in France’s support, went to great lengths in creating myths about France’s sponsorship of the establishment of the state of Greater Lebanon in 1920, following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. Throughout the centuries and decades, France — “the eldest daughter of the Church”, as the Vatican described it — maintained an unbroken cultural, educational, economic and humane communion with the Christians of Lebanon and Syria.