France troops to remain in Syria after US troops withdraw

France will maintain its participation in the coalition fighting ISIL forces in Syria, a government minister said on December 20 after President Donald Trump surprised Washington's allies by ordering US troops home.

"For now, of course, we remain in Syria," France 's European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said on television, adding "the fight against terrorism is not over."

France's defense minister says Islamic State militants have been weakened but not wiped from the map in Syria and that the fight to defeat them definitively in their remaining pockets needed to carry on.

"Islamic State has been weakened more than ever," Florence Parly said on Twitter on Thursday, responding to President Donald Trump's announcement on Wednesday that the group had been defeated and a US withdrawal would begin.

"But Islamic State has not been wiped from the map nor has its roots. It is necessary that the last pockets of this terrorist organization be definitively defeated militarily," Parly said.

France, which is a leading member of the US-led coalition fighting militants in Syria and Iraq and has, will keep its 1000 odd troops in northern Syria for now.

The French commitment includes special forces units, deployed alongside local Kurdish and Arab forces.

US President Donald Trump declared so-called Islamic State as defeated on Wednesday, saying American ground troops were pulling out of the war-ravaged nation.

"We've won against ISIS," Trump said in a short video posted on Twitter.

"We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land. And now it's time for our troops to come back home."

A withdrawal could have extraordinary geopolitical ramifications and plunges into uncertainty the fate of US-backed Kurdish fighters who have been tackling Islamic State jihadists, thousands of whom are thought to remain in Syria.

The US has, about 2,000 US forces are in the country, most of them on a cadre mission to support local forces fighting IS.

France is especially sensitive to the so-called Islamic State threat after several major attacks on its soil in recent years.

Hundreds of French nationals have also joined the group in Syria.

French officials are scrambling to find out from their US counterparts exactly what Trump's announcement means for the ongoing conflict.