We’ve all seen claims that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, but I’m not sure I’ve seen any mentions of last month’s claim from the French Foreign Ministry that government forces sprayed sarin from a helicopter.

Take a look:

Q – Has France ever tried to verify allegations of the use of chemical weapons by rebels?

A – Of course.

Q – Without success?

A – We have no evidence that would allow us to draw the conclusions we’ve drawn about the regime with respect to the opposition. The same holds true for U.S. officials. Not only is there nothing to indicate that the opposition might have used such weapons, everything leads us to think that that isn’t the case.

So let’s allow the commission of inquiry to do its work in Syria to verify, on the ground, the accusations made by the regime against the opposition. And we will then see how true the regime’s accusations are. What we can say today, officially, affirmatively, and proven scientifically, is that the regime has used them against the opposition. To be even more specific, they have sprayed sarin by helicopter.

Seems that knowing the truth behind this claim would tell us something about what the Syrian government is actually thinking regarding chemical weapons.