Mr Le Drian explained that the strikes, executed in the night between Thursday and Friday, were to stop Islamic State combatants carrying out attacks in Europe.
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He said France’s air strikes were complicated by the fact that IS uses human shields.
“IS organises itself in such a way that children, women and civilians are in the frontline”, he said. The Kremlin says its primary goal is to help President Bashar Assad fight ISIL militants.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile warned that trade ties could suffer over Russia’s violation of Turkish airspace and military buildup in the region centered in Syria’s Latakia, a stronghold of Assad and his Alawite leadership on the Mediterranean.
The French government has insisted that although it is part of the US-led coalition, France will decide who and what to attack independently.
Russia’s defence ministry has been under sustained criticism from the West for its role in the Syrian conflict and denied a claim by a U.S. official that four Syria-bound Russian cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea crashed in Iran.
The authorities have recorded more than 1,550 French citizens or residents involved in terrorist networks in Syria and Iraq, a figure that represents nearly 3 times the figure recorded at the beginning of 2014, according to released estimates.
However he ruled out sending French ground forces into Syria, saying it would be “unrealistic”.
Islamic extremists killed 17 people in a quick succession of attacks in Paris in January, including the shooting deaths of staff members in the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Zoubi said that idea had never been suggested to him.
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Syrian army units and pro-government forces deploy at an undisclosed location in western Syria.
