Four French lawmakers met with Syrian President Bashar Assad Wednesday during a private trip to the war-torn country, despite a breakdown in diplomatic ties between Paris and Damascus.
The French government, which supports the moderate Syrian opposition and wants Assad to leave power, was quick to clarify that the lawmakers were there in no official capacity.
But four years of bloody conflict, the repeated failure of diplomacy and the eruption of the Islamic State group have undermined France's standpoint as more and more countries consider re-engaging with Assad's regime.
"We met Bashar Assad for a good hour. It went very well," Jacques Myard, an MP from the conservative opposition UMP party, told Agence France-Presse in a telephone interview.
He refused to reveal the content of the talks, but Syrian state television said they had discussed "the state of Syrian-French relations, as well as the developments in the Arab world and Europe, especially with regard to terrorism."