Grandstand. You may remember this unfortunate statement from a young President Macron who asserted in a Jupiterian tone: “We are at war! »
He was right – not on the Covid-19 pandemic which was more of a health and social crisis – but on the fact that we are at war and that we have practically never ceased to be since the “events of Algeria”, this civil war that should not be named. Since 1962, France has sent its army to fight everywhere but without it being officially “at war”, the Presidents of the Republic thus escaping any debate in Parliament but also in our society.
The worst was undoubtedly the engagement in Rwanda, in 1994, where our army was sent to cover the debacle of the allies of the Elysée at the time, the genocidaires of the Tutsi. However, I hesitate with the following event, the siege of Sarajevo and the massacres of Srebrenica which were probably permitted by an unavowable policy of support for the Serbs whose militias bloodied Bosnia.
Chad, Gulf War, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Mali… Thirty-two operations according to military historian Michel Goya: France has never ceased to engage militarily abroad . We are at war, but we never say so and we know very little about what is going on there.
Unanimously hated
Today Ukraine is worrying and we can legitimately ask ourselves if we could be led to “wage war” in this country on the borders of Vladimir Putin’s worrying Russia. The reality is that we wouldn’t be able to afford it, not because our army lacks professionalism and equipment, but because it has gradually carved itself out for very different conflicts, without enemies armed with heavy armor, planes and combat helicopters, missiles and drones.
In fact, as the Chief of Staff, Thierry Burkhard, recalled in 2021, the French army is not ready for such a commitment. Only NATO, under the leadership of the United States, would have the means to engage militarily against Russia. Also, before committing or fearing such a commitment, we must clearly look at the reality of our military resources and the consequences of their over-commitment in other “theaters of operation”.
This should make us think about our “intervention” in Mali, in reality in the Sahel because it is in this immense region without borders that we are trying to intervene. Unfortunately without success and above all without any vision of what we are doing there. When, with each new death in this conflict, a moving ceremony of homage is organized for this “hero” just deceased, it goes hand in hand with the feeling that all social debate is inevitably moving away. Ten years of commitments, with the best result of being now unanimously hated in the region, governments captured by the military, societies in disarray, Islamist “threats” that have less connection with religion than with movements channeling all the frustrations… it feels like chaos.
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