France Sends Aircraft Carrier to Protect Its Citizens in Beirut

France dispatched one of its two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean today to protect 7,000 French citizens living in Beirut, where Christian and Muslim forces continued shelling each other despite U.N. calls for a cease-fire.

In Paris, Prime Minister Michel Rocard’s office said it was sending the aircraft carrier Foch as a precautionary measure to beef up its forces in the eastern Mediterranean and to assist French citizens in Lebanon if necessary.

French envoy Alain Decaux also arrived in Beirut today to talk with local leaders on a mission apparently designed to forestall an all-out confrontation.

The announcement said the carrier would join the frigate Duquesne, which set sail for Lebanese shores Tuesday, and two other French navy vessels already cruising off the Lebanese coast.

Rocard described the move as designed to help the French community in Lebanon. But political experts said the dispatch of a carrier, probably equipped with nuclear weapons, was bound to enrage pro-Syrian Muslim militia leaders who already have protested France’s support of the beleaguered Christian community in Lebanon.

Christian troops and Syrian-backed Muslims lobbed artillery shells and mortars into populated areas of Christian east and Moslem west Beirut Thursday, killing a Christian child and a Moslem adult and wounding five civilians, police said.