A French Honor Not Always for the Honorable; Assad Returns His

LONDON — Lance Armstrong was stripped of his, and Harvey Weinstein will lose his, but Vladimir Putin still has one. On Thursday, Bashar Assad sent his back, though he was on his way to having it taken away from him.

The Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, has been pinned on many of the world’s most esteemed cultural, political, military, scientific, philanthropic and athletic figures. But alongside them have been some less-revered characters, like Assad, the Syrian president, who has been blamed for a series of atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons, in his country’s seven-year-old civil war.

The award is usually given for “outstanding merit” in some field, but France has been known to honor foreign leaders simply because it suits the government’s purposes at the time.

Recipients have included Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman who was later imprisoned for drug and financial crimes; Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator; and Putin, the Russian president.

As if to acknowledge the risk for embarrassment, foreign heads of state — unlike other recipients — are not always honored publicly, and sometimes word does not leak for years. The government does not make any statement about the reasons for such awards.

Any award will, inevitably, go to some people whose names fall from vaunted to scorned, like Armstrong (seven-time Tour de France champion, later proven to be a drug cheat) and Weinstein (producer of great films, now widely seen as a sexual predator). The French government said in October that it had started the process of revoking Weinstein’s medal.

Philippe Pétain received the award for his service as France’s military leader in World War I, but he was stripped of it — and imprisoned — after World War II for working with the country’s Nazi conquerors as leader of the Vichy government. Maurice Papon, who held several positions in French government, had his honor revoked after being convicted in 1998 of taking part in sending Jews to concentration camps.

But some non-French recipients, like Assad and Noriega, were the subject of doubts in real time, not just in hindsight.

For French honorees, the award — known formally as the National Order of the Legion of Honour — is for “outstanding merit acquired in the service of the nation,” and foreigners can receive it for services to or causes supported by France. (The list of American recipients is heavy on show business figures like Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood, Jerry Lewis and Martin Scorsese.)

But, as the order’s website explains, there is another route to the prize. “State visits are also an occasion for conferring the Legion of Honor upon official figures, pursuant to diplomatic reciprocity and thereby supporting the foreign policy of France,” it says.

A spokeswoman for the order said, “it’s a way to show the two countries maintain relations.”

Though the honor is, at least in name, bestowed by the French president, the order effectively takes the lead in making most choices. But the medals awarded in state visits are given at the government’s discretion.

In 2001, Jacques Chirac, then the president of France, presented the Legion of Honor to Assad, who had taken power the year before. Little was known at the time about Assad, who had inherited the leadership of an oppressive government that was long headed by his father, but Western governments were eager to improve relations with Syria.

France recently began the process of revoking Assad’s medal, after joining with the United States and Britain last week in missile strikes on Syria, in retaliation for what is believed to be the latest instance in which the Assad government used chemical weapons on civilians. He has called such accusations baseless.

Rather than wait for that process to play out, Assad returned the medal, the diplomatic equivalent of quitting before being fired. In a statement, the Syrian Foreign Ministry described the award as a decoration given by a “follower of the United States that supports terrorists.”

In giving out honors, the risk of regret is higher with a prize awarded as liberally as the Legion’s green, white and gold medal on a red ribbon. The honor can be given each year to as many as 2,600 French citizens, who become members of the Order of the Legion, and up to 320 foreigners, who are honorees but not members.

Until last year, the maximum number of recipients each year was higher.

The Legion, created by Napoleon in 1802, has gone to more than 1 million people. French officials have estimated that there are about 93,000 living recipients.

The order does not reveal how many of the awards have been revoked.