Appearing in a two-hour live broadcast on French television BFM and online investigative site Mediapart, the 40-year-old leader said the U.S., Britain and France had “full international legitimacy to intervene” in order to enforce international humanitarian law.

The allies fired missiles early Saturday at three chemical-weapons facilities in Syria to punish the regime for the alleged use of chemical weapons in the town of Douma.

“It was retaliation, not an act of war,” Macron said in justifying the operation a day before the French parliament was set to debate it.