MARJAYOUN, Lebanon — France is poised to dispatch hundreds of troops today to support the international peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, confronting painful memories of the deadly 1983 bombing in Beirut and concerns about more violence in the next few months.

The French are contributing the second-largest contingent to the beefed-up U.N. force assigned to uphold the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah militants. France also will command the force until early next year, when Italy is to take over.

Some 900 French troops who have been staying at a temporary camp outside Beirut are to begin moving today to encampments south of the Litani River, where the Israeli army is pulling out. They will join hundreds of troops from Italy, Spain, India and Ghana — as well as other French forces already in the area.

Left: A French U.N. peacekeeper rides past a billboard showing Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Sunday.