We're from the UN! We're here to help!
James Astill in the Guardian reports And then the cry went up: 'Where are the French?':

In a virtual re-run of the battle for Bunia last month - when 700 UN peacekeepers stood by as hundreds of civilians were massacred, and 25,000 fled - the French troops remained at their airport barracks, without orders or capacity to intervene.

Thousands of Bunia's terrified residents poured back to the main UN compound they had only recently vacated, lugging their groaning wounded and hundreds of terrified, wailing children with them. But as the storm of bullets and grenades swept across the compound from all sides, this was a fragile refuge. Sprawling on the concrete floors, over 50 Western journalists cowered as bullets thudded into the walls and mortars exploded outside. Having flocked to Bunia in the expectation of seeing a triumphant French intervention, they found themselves depending on Bunia's humiliated Uruguayan UN peacekeepers, who fired not a round in return yesterday.
...
Charged with explaining the UN's latest failure to quell the bitter war in Congo's Ituri province, French commander Col Daniel Vollot said: 'Our mandate has not changed. We are trying to impede the fighting through negotiations. We went between the lines, we spoke to the soldiers, to the leaders, but no one wants to talk, they want to fight.'

That's funny - I was reading an article yesterday that said:

Over the next few days, the French contingent -- about 700 troops -- will arrive in Bunia and begin their mission, which has been described as "complex."

The forces have "robust rules of engagement" to deal with the militias in Bunia, one French military official said.

Apparently it depends on how you define "robust".