The chief of staff of the French armed forces addressed the mayors of France with some highly controversial remarks this week. Acknowledging the threats currently facing the European continent and the weakness of French forces, he asked French families to “prepare to lose your children.” Given Macron’s weakness on the international stage and his loss of political credibility, this warmongering tone has not gone down well and has been unanimously condemned by both the Left and the Right.
During his visit to the congress of mayors on Tuesday, November 18th, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, General Fabien Mandon, spoke of the imminence of a military confrontation with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The language used in his speech caused his audience to jump when he called on the country to “accept the loss of its children.”
The general sought to rouse the mayors of France by pointing out the lack of fighting spirit in today’s France, which is mired in endless stagnation: “We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to deter the Moscow regime. What we lack, and this is where you have a major role to play, is the strength of character to accept that we must suffer in order to protect who we are,” he explained. Addressing local elected officials and calling on them to bear witness, given their proximity to the French people, he concluded, “You must talk about this in your cities.”
This is not the first time General Mandon has made alarmist statements. In October, he considered a war between NATO and Russia to be imminent, referring to a horizon of “three or four years.” These remarks were made to a select group, namely the members of the Defence Committee, in order to raise their awareness of the need for the country’s ‘rearmament effort,’ involving a substantial increase in the defence budget.
On the Left, the president of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, expressed his “total disagreement” with the French general’s remarks the very next day. His disagreement was expressed both in substance and in form. On X, Mélenchon criticised the chief of staff of the French armed forces for “anticipating sacrifices that would be the consequence of our diplomatic failures, on which his public opinion was not sought.” This is the second time the chief of staff has ventured into the field of foreign policy, bypassing the national representation. “The CEMA (chef d’Etat-major des armées) is overstepping his role. Such comments are in no way part of his function, added the LFI MP.
Former French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, who is leaving open the possibility of a return to the political arena, reacted to the chief of staff’s comments in a long message published on X, referring to “delusional statements.” She also asked President Emmanuel Macron for an explanation:
Either he is aware of and has approved this text, in which case he must explain himself, or this is not the case and the Chief of Staff must resign.
On the Right, the outrage was just as strong. The vice president of the Rassemblement National, Sébastien Chenu, said General Fabien Mandon did not have “the legitimacy” to make such statements and denounced “a mistake” on his part. He also shares Royal’s analysis: if the President of the Republic asked him to express himself in this way, “it is even more serious.”
Since this controversy, the spokesman for the chief of the defence staff has been forced to clarify his remarks, explaining that the term “children” refers to the armed forces as “children of the nation.”
“To endure a high-intensity war means to expect losses. Military losses, economic suffering,” he specified, asserting that a “country that is not prepared to understand this is a weak country.”
The shockwave caused by General Mandon’s comments should be considered on two levels. There is obviously a painful truth in the senior officer’s observation that French society—like other Western societies—is less prepared for war than ever and suffers from a moral weakness that has become structural due to the prolonged absence of real conflict in Europe. But the words are considered unacceptable coming from a man in the service of a despised head of state, who is playing with France’s interests without considering the consequences of his words when it comes to a confrontation with Russia.
