France, the former colonial ruler of Tunisia, refused to denounce President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's attempt to disperse demonstrators in his country by force in January 2011 prior to the Tunisian revolution; Foreign Affairs Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said the French "must not stand out as lesson-givers" in Tunisia, while the French minister for agriculture defended Ben Ali, saying, "President Ben Ali is someone who's frequently judged badly, [but] he's done a lot of things." The French government later took a leading role in supporting the opposition to Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya, forming a tripartite alliance with the United Kingdom and Lebanon on the United Nations Security Council to successfully lobby for international military intervention, though it was Peru that was the first country to sever bilateral relations with the government in Tripoli over the crackdown on Libyan protesters in February 2011.