France intends to send “several hundred” of its soldiers to Romania as part of a possible NATO deployment, its Minister of the Armed Forces said on Saturday, when the French Minister of Foreign Affairs announced a joint visit to Ukraine in early February with his German counterpart.
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“That’s why I went to Romania on Thursday. We obviously exchanged with our Romanian partners on this question”, explained on the radio France inter the Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, after President Macron announced on January 19 the “availability” of France to commit “on new missions”, “particularly in Romania”.
This country, bordering Ukraine and which has access to the Black Sea, an “area of extreme tension”, because Russia and Ukraine also have a “facade” there, is “at the epicenter of tensions” and must therefore be “reassured”, estimated Ms. Parly.
“We will have a meeting very soon with the members of NATO” on sending a force to Romania and “we are preparing ourselves so that we will be ready as soon as we are asked to (including ) deploy”, “in consultation with other European partners and countries”, she continued.
Paris intends to send “several hundred men” and wishes “to be the framework nation for this force which would thus be deployed in Romania”, just as the United Kingdom currently commands the NATO battalion in Estonia, specified the Minister for French armies.
“It’s about doing reassurance as part of a defensive alliance,” she insisted.
The head of Diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian for his part announced on Twitter on Saturday that he would go “on February 7 and 8” to Ukraine with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.
“I reassured Dmytro Kuleba (the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Editor’s note) of our full support and solidarity with Ukraine. Our mobilization continues, particularly in the Normandy format, for the de-escalation of tensions”, he also posted.
Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany discussed Wednesday in Paris for the first time since September 2021 in this quadripartite format called “Normandy”. They then agreed that the ceasefire should be maintained between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. A similar meeting is to be held in February in Berlin.