War smells like something new, at 126e infantry regiment (RI) of Brive-la-Gaillarde. No dreary facades, no windows with old brick lintels around the parade ground of the Laporte barracks, where an imposing white bison sits, the emblem of the unit. The company quarter buildings look like buildings just built from the ground, the corps commander’s offices could be those of an administrative city, even the hangars, where around forty brand new armored vehicles sleep, look like they do. Mistaken for Amazon warehouses.
In this barracks in Corrèze, the upheavals of the world appear almost silent. What is roaring are the engines of the Griffons, new troop transport vehicles with which the regiment was one of the first to be equipped, from 2021, to replace its old fleet of VABs (armored front vehicles), noisy and designed in the 1970s. If the bullets whistle, it’s under the noise-cancelling headphones. The debate on sending soldiers to Ukraine is barely emerging, in mid-March, at the end of vigorous training, during a brief cigarette break, under an awning bombarded by hail.
No one wants to risk, at first glance, commenting on the remarks of the President of the Republic, whereas, on February 26, Emmanuel Macron caused unease among a number of allies by brutally announcing that the sending of “troops” in Ukraine should not ” be excluded “. Here at 126e RI, the Ukrainian conflict is at best “a somewhat distant setting”, “a backdrop”, some concede. “The soldier always remains pragmatic, he only projects himself from objective to objective”, wants to put the officer in charge of communications into perspective, even if, like an elephant in the middle of the room, this war is often there, in heads and in room discussions.
On the map of the army regiments, the 126e RI (1,200 soldiers and 200 reservists) is a survivor. Threatened twice with closure when people still believed in the end of the Cold War, in the “peace dividend”, it was saved by the magic of its Corrèze roots and the pardons of President Jacques Chirac (1995-2007). ). While many barracks today suffer from dilapidated infrastructure, the “Bisons” have benefited from unexpected catch-up investments. Their geographical isolation, in the middle of the “military desert”, paradoxically helped them. And now that the army is seeking to gain strength, it is one of the best-off regiments in France.
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