On February 20, the European Union will announce whether it plans to renew sanctions on Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship in Zimbabwe, which were first put in place in 2002 when he refused to allow election observers from the European Union to monitor the country’s presidential balloting. The sanctions consist of an asset freeze and travel restrictions on Zimbabwean officials, not economic measures that would hurt the people.

The European press has reported that Portugal and France oppose renewing the sanctions. Instead, they have pressed for lessening them, if not removing them entirely.

The Portuguese hope to invite Mugabe to an Africa summit they are holding in November, and France may invite the dictator to its 23rd annual Africa summit in Cannes next week. Exemptions in the sanctions regime allowed France’s president, Jacques Chirac, to host Mugabe for a French-Africa summit in 2003 and permitted Italy to allow Mugabe entry for the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

The human toll of Mugabe’s land seizure policies are horrific, but bear repeating: Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is the lowest in the world, 34 for women and 37 for men; the weekly death rate is 3,500, exceeding that of Darfur, and the country bears the highest number of orphans per capita.

The French are partly motivated by the consideration that Europe’s continued isolation of Mugabe has angered African leaders who take a more sanguine view of the problems in Zimbabwe. Several of Mugabe’s African comrades — who have done nothing to alleviate the humanitarian disaster — have threatened to boycott the European meetings if Mugabe is not allowed to attend. When I visited Zimbabwe in August, Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the opposition party, told me that African countries had shown a “kid glove treatment of dictatorship” in Zimbabwe.

A former revolutionary rebel himself, Mugabe continues to speak in the tropes of anti-colonial language and knows how to persuade his fellow African heads of state. A spokesman for his ruling Zanu-PF Party recently said, “Britain is pursuing a colonial practice, repression of other nations, and I hope other countries will not be dragged in its sinister agendas.” This talk obfuscates the real situation in Zimbabwe, where a black government is starving and killing its people.

To be fair, at the 2003 Africa summit, Mr. Chirac did not bestow Gallic kisses on Mugabe’s cheeks, as he did to the other heads of state, opting instead for a handshake and friendly nod. Yet, the British Conservative Party’s foreign affairs spokesman said at the time, “This will be marked out as the grubbiest handshake of the year.” During that visit, Mugabe and his wife, Grace, who is 40 years his junior, stayed in a $6,000-a-night Paris hotel. Asked by a journalist how she could justify her shopping sprees at Harrods and on the Champs Élysée while people in Zimbabwe starved, Mrs. Mugabe responded, “I have very narrow feet, so I only wear Ferragamo.”

The French could take a lesson from the British, who have been far more robust in opposing Mugabe, not least because Zimbabwe used to be a British colony and Mugabe has continually unleashed his wrath against white farmers, many of whom are British passport holders, and regularly denounces Prime Minister Blair. In 2003 the Commonwealth voted to indefinitely suspend Zimbabwe from the organization, and in reaction, Mugabe promptly quit that body.

Opposition to Mugabe transcends political affiliation in Britain. The right opposes him for his Marxist policies and the left because he has crushed the trade union movement. Indeed, a former union leader heads the opposition to Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and in September, the dictator violently repressed a peaceful protest led by union groups. Last month, the head of Britain’s Trades Union Congress castigated the French government, saying, “An invitation to the summit is tantamount to acquiescence to the policies of a regime responsible for numerous violations of human rights and for the unprecedented social and economic crisis facing Zimbabwe.” Last Friday, British trade unions staged a large protest outside the French Embassy.

Isolation is the primary tool the West can use to weaken Mugabe. Eleanor Sisulu, director of the Johannesburg-based Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition told me last year that Western isolation of Zimbabwe’s government — but not its people — has been crucial in putting pressure on Mugabe and has weakened his regime.

“Apart from what they are already doing, just keeping the screws on Mugabe and making it clear that he’s not going to get the kind of benefits that he had before,” is the direction that the West ought to take, she said. Mr. Chamisa, the opposition spokesman, told me that the international community must maintain its “international pariah status” for Zimbabwe.

Before France extends its invitation to one of the world’s most nefarious dictators, it ought to listen to the words of these valiant African democrats.

Mr. Kirchick is assistant to the editor in chief of the New Republic.