Do not think too much so as not to sink, while being prepared for the worst. This is the mental gymnastics faced by Cécile, 43, married for almost 15 years to a Pau soldier who returned in mid-December from Mali. While Emmanuel Macron announced this Thursday, February 17 that the French troops engaged for nine years in Operation Barkhane, to fight against terrorism in Mali, are withdrawing, the forties testifies to her daily life during the four months of “Operation ‘Ex’, of foreign operation, of her husband.
I know it’s part of the guy’s package. When I met my husband, he was already in the military.
Cécile, wife of a Pau soldier returned from Mali.
“I was trying not to think too much, not to get hammered in my head. Otherwise I would have spent my days on the sofa, in front of the news channels continuously, until I saw the info fall what I was waiting for.” The news, she never looked at them in the presence of her two children, aged 8 and 11 during their father’s operation. “Except once, during a car trip, when I was not paying attention and when we heard on the radio the announcement of a death. My son, whom I thought was absorbed in his video game, has everything I then looked up and asked what it was. I explained to him that it wasn’t Dad and it wasn’t something that could happen to Dad. But it was hard to deal with.”
Reassuring the children while being, even if she doesn’t put it that way, worried herself. “I know it’s part of the guy’s package. When I met my husband, he was already in the military.” The fact that the worst could happen, she discussed it with him. “It’s not necessarily something that couples of the same age do since apart from a car accident, there is little chance of anything happening before. We know that there is this Damocles’ sword above our heads when he’s at work. We approached him once, it’s done. Afterwards, of course, we remain human.”
If it is not Mali it will be elsewhere, and not necessarily more serene.
Cécile, wife of a Pau soldier returned from Mali.
Cécile is not necessarily reassured that Operation Barkhane is over since, first of all, she expects that the troops will not withdraw overnight and that her husband will return to Mali at least once. , and because “if it’s not Mali it will be elsewhere, and not necessarily more serene.”
53 soldiers have died in Mali since 2013, including, in November 2019, the seven soldiers of the 5th RHC in Pau who died in a helicopter accident. About 200 soldiers from the Pau regiments are currently in Mali and some could be redeployed to other states where armed groups operate. France remains militarily engaged in the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea.