Fabius: France Helped Syrian Military Figures to Desert

France has helped a number of Syrian military figures to desert from President Bashar Assad's embattled regime, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday.

"We have contributed to a certain number of desertion operations," he told a parliamentary commission, without giving any further details.

The comment came a day after defected general Manaf Tlass said French secret agents helped him escape in July from Syria, where he had been a member of Assad's inner circle.

A general in the elite Republican Guard charged with protecting the regime, Tlass is the son of former defense minister Mustafa Tlass, a close friend of Assad's late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.

France is among the Western nations leading calls for Assad to step down in a bid to end the bloody conflict in Syria that erupted in March last year.

French President Francois Hollande has said that if the Syrian opposition forms a "provisional, inclusive and representative" government, his own government will formally recognize it.