The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, affirmed this Tuesday in Dakar the need for his country’s defense industry to “enter into stimuli” to meet external demand and the possible needs of the national forces.
“We have a quality defense industry, but one that must necessarily be stimulated,” the minister told reporters, when asked about the ability of French industrialists to help Ukraine while meeting the needs and demands of the forces. national and foreign partners.
“Making Mass”
A ministry official cited the example of the Caesar Cannon, of which France gave copies to Ukraine and that “everyone wants to buy.” French industry must “be able to make dough, especially for our army,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Sébastien Lecornu was in the Ivory Coast on Monday and in Senegal on Tuesday, two close allies in a region and on a continent where the French presence is abused.
It was about continuing with the project of “re-articulation” of the French military presence in Africa, evoking the aftermath of the war in Ukraine and Russian entryism on the continent, as well as cooperation against jihadism in the Sahel, he explained. The Russian invasion divided African countries and many of them refrained from condemning it.
French soldiers were expelled from Mali in 2022 by a junta that turned on Russia. Another junta in neighboring Burkina Faso has just asked France to withdraw the 400 soldiers from the Saber force.
Source: BFM TV
