As a major turning point in the relations between France and the Orient, the Egyptian Campaign, undertaken by the Directory in 1798, was the concretisation of a dream of conquest, which went back to the reign of Louis XIV.

Had this treaty, signed in September 1936, between Léon Blum and Hashim al-Atassi, been ratified, it could have opened a new page in the relations between France and Syria, finally brought together on a basis of equality.