Hezbollah will not hear of these air resources. Aircraft without a pilot, the French drones deployed in Lebanon are also planes without wings.

Since they arrived there in mid-December, they have not left their crates - and yet the affair had started out well. In deploying six Sperwer or SDTI (Interim Tactical Drones System) drones, Paris intended to partly fill UNIFIL's "aerial gap" by providing reconnaissance resources that in particular would make it less easy for the Israelis to justify their air overflights of southern Lebanon. On the French side, the experiment was promising because it was the first deployment of drones in a theatre of operation.

So why are the French drones still in pieces? The issue seriously irritates Hezbollah, which has defined its "red lines", in this case that UNIFIL can patrol on the surface but not poke its nose too much into its business. It will not hear of these air resources, especially since it suspects the peacekeepers of wanting to pass the intelligence to the Israelis.

While New York's go-ahead has apparently been given, it is a French internal disagreement that keeps the drones grounded. The tension their use could cause is in fact subject to analysis. "Some people feel these flights would only increase an already-high level of tension and put us in Hezbollah's sights," a diplomat explains.

"A minimum to be accepted"

France's ambassador in Beirut, Bernard Emie, who has the Elysee's [the president's office] ear, feels these drones are not a good idea at all. And he has let his views be known. On the Defence Ministry side, there is a different view of the situation. "This UNIFIL II arrangement never should have been accepted without an air exclusion zone or an agreement on control of the third dimension," a military source explains, "whereas these unarmed surveillance drones would be a minimum to have accepted".

Ten days ago the Defence Ministry spokesperson, Jean-Francois Bureau, said the question of drones was no longer relevant. Will the Sperwers go back across the Mediterranean without having taken to the sky? To resolve the issue, people are now thinking of keeping them in their crates in Lebanon and threatening to take them out if the situation deteriorates, to couple them with the AUF1 heavy cannons. Surveillance drones as a deterrent weapon: the idea is a bit daring, and at any rate innovative...