Both Syria and Algeria support France in its demand that global polices should not be dominated by the USA and its European partner, the UK.

They say they favour - as do other countries in the Arab world - an international system underpinned by widely-agreed principles and a legal framework based on number of mutually respectful perspectives.

Yet what this means on the ground in these countries, as elsewhere in the Middle East, is very little.

French insiders believe that though they espouse the idea of a multi-polar world, they are much less able to put it into practice.

This programme concentrates on France's attempts to encourage Arab countries to act in unison for their own self-interest, rather than relying on others to speak for them.

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	Act in unison