France's Macron Chides Trump, Saying An Ally Should Be 'Dependable'

French President Emmanuel Macron meeting Trump in Paris in November.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he deeply regrets U.S. President Donald Trump's recent decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria.

Macron said during a press conference in Chad on December 23 that "an ally should be dependable."

"I very deeply regret the decision made on Syria," he added.

Trump on December 22 defended his decision and repeated his assertion that the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group had been defeated in Syria.

On December 20, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned over Trump's decision. Two days later, the U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting IS, Brett McGurk, also resigned over the decision.

Many military leaders also said a U.S. withdrawal would represent a betrayal to the Syrian Arab and Kurdish alliance that a U.S.-led coalition had been backing in the fight against IS. Ankara has threatened to move into areas controlled by Kurdish groups that it says are aligned with Kurdish separatists in Turkey.

NATO allies, including France and Germany, expressed concerns that such a drastic U.S. change of course risked the fight against IS, which has been driven from most of the territory it controlled into small slices of Syrian lands.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP