Comment by inglor_cz
15 hours ago
France was historically very interested in the Near and Middle East, though colonially somewhat less successful than the UK; Napoleon sailed to Egypt in 1799, and later the French Republic protected Lebanese and Syrian Christians, up to some point in history. People from the Levant still like to study in France (incl. Nassim Nicholas Taleb). Hence, France is considered a strong and culturally developed country in the region.
And unlike the UK and US, they had no historic bad blood with Iran (Mossadegh et al.)
And French is still language of educated class in some places in Levant, esp. Liban.
When I lived in Tehran in the late '70s people said "merci" to express thanks.
They still do.
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Armenia as well
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A more recent influence came from the Sykes-Picot Agreement [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
Yes, but there are more. For example, French engineers built the Suez Canal.