French President Emmanuel Macron admitted Tuesday that airstrikes in Syria “solve nothing,” adding that France, Britain and the US had been forced to step up and defend the “honor” of the international community. Addressing the European Parliament, Macron said the Western allies acted to defend global rules and accused Syrian leader Bashar Assad of being “at war with his people,” AFP said. “These strikes will resolve nothing but they will end a system… which is that, somehow, the right side has become the weak side,” Macron said. He insisted that the strikes were conducted “within a legitimate, multilateral framework, and in a very targeted way without any human victim, not a single human victim, to destroy three sites where chemical weapons were being produced or processed.” A group of MEPs held placards reading “Hands off Syria!” during Macron’s address.