France intends to send “several hundred” of its soldiers in Romania as part of a possible deployment of NATO, announced Saturday its Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, when the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced a joint visit to Ukraine early February with her German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock.
“That’s why I went to Romania on Thursday. We obviously discussed this issue with our Romanian partners”, explained on France Inter Florence Parly radio, after the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced on January 19 the “availablity” of France to commit “on new missions”, “in particular in Romania”.
This country, bordering Ukraine and which has access to the Black Sea, a “zone of extreme tension» because Russia and Ukraine also have a “facade”, must be “reinsured”, said Florence Parly. “We will have a meeting very soon with NATO members” on sending a force to Romania and “we prepare ourselves so that we are ready the moment we are asked to [y] deploy”, “in consultation with other European partners and countries”, she continued.
Paris intends to send “several hundred men” and wish “to be the framework nation of this force which would thus be deployed in Romania”, just as the United Kingdom currently commands the NATO battalion in Estonia, said the French Minister for the Armed Forces. “It’s about doing reinsurance as part of a defensive alliance”, she insisted.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, for his part, announced on Twitter on Saturday that he would surrender “February 7 and 8” in Ukraine with her German counterpart Annalena Baerbock. “I reassured Dmytro Kuleba [le ministère ukrainien des Affaires étrangères, ndlr] our full support and solidarity with Ukraine. Our mobilization continues, particularly in the Normandy format, for the de-escalation of tensions”, he also posted.
Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany discussed Wednesday in Paris for the first time since September 2021 in this quadripartite format called “Normandy”. They then agreed that the ceasefire should be maintained between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. A similar meeting is to be held in February in Berlin.