To make things worse, France’s Libyan adventure was reportedly concocted as a side project of France’s much-mocked premier philosophical poseur, “intellectual dandy”, and ubiquitous media hound Bernard-Henri Levy. Diane Johnstone writes in Counterpunch:
Bernard-Henri Levy held a private meeting in Benghazi with Moustapha Abdeljalil, a former justice minister who has turned coats to become leader of the rebel “National Transition Council”. That very evening, BHL [Bernard-Henri Levy] called Sarkozy on his cellphone and got his agreement to receive the NTC leaders. The meeting took place on March 10 in the Elysee palace in Paris.
As reported in Le Figaro by veteran international reporter Renaud Girard, Sarkozy thereupon announced to the delighted Libyans the plan that he had concocted with BHL: recognition of the NTC as sole legitimate representative of Libya, the naming of a French ambassador to Benghazi, precision strikes on Libyan military airports, with the blessings of the Arab League (which he had already obtained). The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, was startled to learn of this dramatic turn in French diplomacy after the media. [9]