“We have to pick up speed.” Guest on BFMTV this Wednesday, General Pierre de Villiers, chief of the French General Staff between 2014 and 2017, felt that our troops were no longer in a position to fight and win a war.
“I make a call to restore coherence between the missions that we entrust to the army and the media,” he said.
As for the resources allocated to the armies, the military programming law The budget is expected to increase to €44 billion in 2023, after a further increase of €3 billion. In 2017, the year of resignation of General de Villiers, in disagreement with the endowment assigned to our troops, it was 32 billion.
For Colonel Michel Goya, defense consultant for BFMTV, the same observation: “France does not have the means to carry out a large-scale, high-intensity military operation.”
“In 1990 we were able to deploy some 120 combat regiments for the Army in a few days. Currently maybe 15, and not in a few days,” he explained.
The key role of nuclear deterrence
While a presidential adviser stressed on Tuesday that “France reaffirms its ambition to be a balancing power on the international stage by 2030, which has strengthened its influence and its influence in its areas of interest”, Colonel Michel Goya himself considered that the country was “not up to the challenges and the international situation”.
Given this situation, Emmanuel Macron intends to make up for the lack of human and material resources by reinforcing the role of the French nuclear deterrent in Europe’s security.
France must continue to be a power “respected for its status as a state possessing nuclear weapons, the engine of European strategic autonomy, an exemplary ally in the Euro-Atlantic zone, a reliable and credible partner,” he said on Wednesday.
A crucial position for Admiral Alain Coldefy, former inspector general of the armies and former deputy chief of staff, who declared on BFMTV that France “has lived in the Care Bears period since the period of peace dividends”, where the army was relegated to the bottom. Whether these calls will be heeded by the government remains to be seen.
Source: BFM TV
