I remember this interview with Régis Debray, in which he criticized French politicians for this.
He said in an interview
"The French will never understand this, and so they will continue, with Bernard-Henri Lévy, Bernard Kouchner, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, to send missiles and expeditionary forces to the antipodes to save universal human rights. All they want to do is liberate women, educate children and build a state. " State building "by Westerners on Afghan plateaus is a prodigious idea. It's such a state of zaniness, it makes your arms fall off. "