Venezuela crisis is not anywhere on the scale of outright war in Syria and Libya. It is also well outside the reach of feasible French force projection. France however is involved in a number of conflicts elsewhere in francophone Africa, relatively low profile as the interventions have stabilizing effect.
With Libya and Syria we also had as close to A/B test in history as we get. What if we interfere in a massacre, and what if we watch from the sidelines in exchange for deal with Iran? The answer is apparently two orders of magnitude more deaths, displacement and human suffering.
Solving the crisis there is indirectly one of the interests of the EU. The current situation also strengthens the position of Russia in the Middle East which is not in European interest.
Disclaimer: I'm from Germany. We have a shift to the right in most EU countries. One of the reasons the Britains left the EU was the refugee crisis - populists used this to scare the voters. This concept was also very successful to get votes in Germany with AfD (alternative party for Germany, right-wing).
Would love to hear other opinions instead of getting downvotes.
The fear of them has been amplified, but I don’t believe the actual refugees are the problem.
And, in case you’re wondering about me mixing up refugees and migrants, part of the problem in the UK is that angry people can’t tell them apart, so I don’t actually know which they’re really objecting to.
I don't think so, too. The underlying problem is growing inequality of wealth and opportunities. The very far right-wing people fear that the refugees will worsen their situation (and many are simply xenophobic, too).
I think it's a shame that there is no differentiation between these problems of inequality and helping people who get attacked by their own government. It seems that many people here in Europe don't understand that it's our duty to help people who get killed in their home countries (by our own moral standards).
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France (and other European nations) care about the Syrian conflict because of the fear that more refugees will seek shelter in the EU (most European countries could handle this, but they won't do it because they aren't humanitarian which is pretty sad to see). Bringing peace to Syria is therefore a critical part of EU's solution to this (another wave of refugees would seriously risk the EU because the people here seem to have lost their connection to humanism - we could easily handle it if we want to). I have a hunch that I got downvotes because people interpreted my opinion as being contra refugees, but I'm actually telling the opposite. The problem is that many European countries (i.e. people) have decided that it's not their problem when people are in life-threatening situations and die while trying to get into those countries.
You don't see France egging on the US to get militarily involved in Venezuela for example. What's going on there is a human disaster of a similar scale as Syria, with the Maduro dictatorship brutalizing and starving the people, and millions fleeing the country. There is rarely a shortage of civil wars and other assorted internal conflicts to get involved in around the world. So why is France specifically so amped up to keep the US in Syria?