Pool photo by Philippe Wojazer

Until very recently, when people gathered to do the math on United Nations Security Council reform, it was always a given that France had the weakest claim to permanent membership on the council. The others on the so-called “P5″ — the United States, Russia, China and Britain — all made more sense. France’s membership as a “victor” of World War II was always questionable.

This week, at least, things look different. France has, in effect, just changed the regime in Ivory Coast (with U.N. military help). French helicopters were firing on the presidential palace and residence yesterday, and today the forces of the elected president, Alassane Ouattara, say they have possession of the outgoing (if that is the word) president, Laurent Gbagbo, who has been fighting to keep his post for months.

At the same time, France was a leading advocate of strong action in Libya and flew the first sortie once the Security Council approved a resolution to protect Libyan civilians by all means necessary (the same formulation used in the council’s Ivory Coast resolution).

Why France, and why now? I’ve scanned the world’s press, and asked around a bit, seeking an ideological explanation. The French are supposed to go in for ideologies, and this sequence of French actions cries out for one. It doesn’t seem, however, to be there for the finding. The nearest approximation is the doctrine of humanitarian intervention and its more official (and more coherent) expression in the “responsibility to protect,” as adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005. But France has not leaned heavily on this as justification for its actions; the messy reality of killing and collateral damage, the all-too-humanness of local allies and the allure of regime change combine to make doctrinal modesty the wisest choice.

History, chance, national interests and presidential impetuousness seem to have played larger roles. Ivory Coast was a French colony, has a significant population of French citizens (and resident French troops) and has been important, together with its neighbors, as a resource base for French business, notably in oil. Libya was not a French colony — although France made a grab for the Fezzan, in southwest Libya, after World War II, briefly attaching it to French Algeria. France does, however, have a considerable interest in keeping Libyan oil flowing — and in keeping Libyan immigrants in Libya, or at least Italy. Just a few days ago, France expressed an interest in strengthening its border with Italy, which under European Union accords is supposed to be open.

Finally, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy was embarrassed by its late-in-the-day friendships with the governments of Hosni Mubarak and, especially, Ben Ali of Tunisia. It was bad for the political amour-propre.

Result? Two little wars, one regime down, one to go.

This is not where Sarkozy wanted to end up. In 2007, in Senegal, he gave a regrettable speech in which he suggested that Africans had not yet become real historical actors like, you know, non-Africans (“l’homme africain n’est pas assez entré dans l’Histoire”). He made up for this as president in May 2010, when he vowed that France’s relationship to Africa would be as a business partner and an investor in development, like a more familiar version of China. And yet here he is, guns blazing, with allusions to France’s “role before history.”