“Faced with a threat of the type that the Ukrainians face, this army is unsuitable,” said the former officer and author of the defense blog “Ne Pas Subir” on Thursday on franceinfo.
Faced with emerging conflicts at the gates of Europe, “the French army is no longer up to the task.”regrets Thursday October 19 Guillaume Ancel, former French officer and writer, author of the defense blog “Ne Pas Subir”. “With the war in Ukraine, we discovered that we were concerned about the war when for 30 years we thought it was no longer our subjecthe explained. It’s serious because French society, like most European societies, thought that war was for others.”
France has just appointed General Bertrand Toujouse, commander of land forces, at the head of “command for air-land operations in Europe” (CTE). The objective is a better “coherence and responsiveness of Army deployments in Europe”indicates the Land Forces Command on the social network
“We are obliged to have a defense tool that is up to the task and the French army is no longer up to the task”, affirms Guillaume Ancel. The French army “was transformed by my generation into a light expeditionary force for interventions that were not asked of it throughout the world”he regretted.
“Faced with a threat of the type that the Ukrainians are facing, this army is unsuitable and has not been able to reform because basically, political power today is not capable of calling into question completely this absence also of strategy”.
Guillaume Ancel, former French officer and writeron franceinfo
According to the former officer, only a European defense can do the job. If Europe “accumulate all its defense budgets, it would already have half the American budget. But today, France is the 10th. France is a middle power which still believes itself to be a great power, the great power , it’s Europe”he estimated.