It is a major exercise for which the French armies are preparing: Operation Orion. From February to May 2023, 7,000 soldiers will be engaged in naval operations in the Mediterranean with an amphibious operation. Never such a mobilization of forces will have taken place on the French territory, the scenario will be a major conflict in coalition against another State. In particular, the Army’s new Griffon armored vehicles, Leclerc tanks, but also ground-to-air defense systems, combat aircraft as well as the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and two amphibious helicopter carriers will be deployed there.
An echo with the war in Ukraine
This deployment will take place over three months. It will be a question of simulating an intervention in a destabilized country by militias orchestrated from a neighbor endowed with nuclear power. The exercise is a direct echo of the war in Ukraine. Planned since 2020, therefore before the invasion of last February, but its implementation has been accelerated in view of the context, it is indicated within the armies.
For 15 days, from mid-April to early May, 10 to 12,000 soldiers will train in an air-land confrontation in the plains of north-eastern France. This exercise called Orion will concern all the components of the armies, land, sea, air, space, cyber and information warfare in coalition, that is to say with the European and American allies.
Finally, it will involve civil society, in particular the Ministries of the Interior, Health or Transport, to assess their ability to support the armies if they were to engage in a major conflict. European partners (Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Spain) will be involved, as well as the United States, which will play a division in a digitized way.
Between the two major sequences, a civil-military phase will be organized under the aegis of the General Secretariat for Defense and National Security (SGDSN), which will focus on the various means of civilian support to the armies in the event of a major engagement ( health, transport, etc.), reserves and the information struggle.
“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the mechanisms that existed during the Cold War were allowed to wither away in the event of mobilization”, argues General Metayer, commander of the state forces employment division. – major of the armies.