US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at length in French on Saturday as he marketed the US-led strike against Syria to an increasingly skeptical French public.

US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at length in French on Saturday as he marketed the US-led strike against Syria to an increasingly skeptical French public.

Kerry, who spent summer holidays as a child at a family estate in Brittany, spoke for several minutes in well-accented French at a joint press conference with French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Paris.

Kerry considered that Washington and Paris must move against the alleged use of chemical weapons.

In an attempt to play down the French fears, Kerry said that the strike will not involve ground troops.

"We are not talking about going to war, this is not Iraq, it is not Afghanistan, it is not even Libya or Kosovo."

In France, the sole EU nation determined to join a US-led strike, the latest public opinion poll showed 68 percent of people opposed to military action, an increase of nine percentage points since late August.