This article discusses, focusing on the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, selected aspects of France’s foreign policy in the scope of human rights promotion. Human rights are now a permanent component of international relations and democratic states’ foreign policy, moreover their promotion and protection is a matter of the international community legitimate obligation. The author take an attempt to answer following questions: What is the share of France in the promotion and protection of human rights in the world? What place in the French diplomacy human rights take? Has France finished over with the role of “African gendarme” and became a rational player in the former colonial countries? What is the role of humanitarian interventions engagement in the French African policy?