"The fear is humiliation. Are we going to leave like Niger or Mali with a kick up the arse?" said a French military force with whom Le Monde spoke, shortly before the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that two Israeli tanks had "forcibly entered one of its border positions on Sunday, October 13."

These events come against a backdrop of five wounded UN peacekeepers and damage to UN positions and premises. On Saturday, Israeli forces soldiers stopped "a critical logistical movement" by UNIFIL. "It's obvious that the previous hits [which wounded two Sri Lankan soldiers on October 11] are a way of ramping up the pressure. It's unlikely that a Merkava tank could hit the wrong target. The main camp that was targeted in Naqoura is so large and easy to spot that it's impossible to make a mistake. In the Italian camp, two Israeli soldiers came in and shot at shelters to scare people. There's an Israeli desire to intimidate. They want us to leave," said the source, who gives no credence to Israel's claims of "errors."

"On a day-to-day basis, the majority of the military personnel present on French premises are forced to hang around doing nothing. France has an important mission, that of transmitting all ballistic movements to UNIFIL [thanks to its radar]. And up until now, the French have fulfilled this mission brilliantly, albeit in difficult conditions. But patrols on the ground are completely compromised. We are dependent on the will of Israel. It's Israel that defines the time slots in which we can move around," they explained.

"There's a feeling that the role of the French army has deteriorated and that it is no longer able to carry out its mission in a straightforward manner. France also has a second, special mission: It is FCR [Force Commander Reserve] and must come to the aid of UNIFIL bases in difficulty," they added. "But in the event of a major blow, I don't see what the French military could do...". In addition to a certain helplessness in the field, there is the thorny issue of troop rotations. "We're in the rotation period, scheduled for mid-September, but it can't happen even though the soldiers are very tired. There's a feeling that at a political level, people higher up are being forced to let the situation drag on. Morale is not great."