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General Lecointre leaves his duties as Chief of Staff of the Armies: the reasons for a bitter departure

2021-06-15T16:20:19.990Z


The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces announced on Sunday that he was leaving his post. A departure that is not, officially at least, linked to


A few days after Emmanuel Macron's decision to stop Operation Barkhane, the announcement of the departure of General François Lecointre from his post of Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMA) created a surprise. However, this change was planned and would not be a direct consequence of the programmed withdrawal from the Sahel; not more, officially at least, of the unease aroused within the army by the publication of the two recent military columns with the factious tone published in Current values. Nevertheless, this episode affected the soldier who may have felt a certain isolation within the politico-military apparatus. Sunday, in any case, the Elysee and the staff orchestrated the exit of the CEMA.

"General Lecointre submitted several months ago to the President of the Republic his request to leave active service after July 14, 2021", indicated a press release from the Palais ... a few minutes before the person concerned, guest of the "Grand Jury RTL , LCI-Le Figaro ”, does not comment himself on his“ wish to leave ”. Even specifying the date of passing of the witness to his successor, General Thierry Burkhard, current Chief of Staff of the Army, "July 21".

Why this determination when the officer, aged 59 but extended in his rank by a special decree in March, had been asked by the Head of State "to stay longer"?

Clearly, until the end of the presidential term.

"I did not want a chief of staff of the armed forces to be associated with a politician," he replied.

The memory of the agitated conditions in which he himself succeeded in 2017 to General Pierre de Villiers who had just resigned with a bang, played.

François Lecointre had then experienced, he confides in private, the feeling of re-establishing normalcy in the military-political relationship, in particular “the strict subordination, claimed, from the military to the political”.

"Pro-Macron rug"

It is all the more important to pass the hand under normal, fluid conditions, as the spirits are again heated. For having severely called to order (in our newspaper) the retired generals who signed the platform, he was treated by some as a “traitor” or another “pro-Macron rug”. One of the leaders, the ex-general of the Foreign Legion Piquemal, calling on his fans to “let go of the dogs”! These excesses certainly come from politically committed circles and do not reflect the opinion of the vast majority of soldiers engaged in OPEX (external operations). At the top of the hierarchy, however, there is the fear that poison will seep into people's minds, especially among young officers: the idea that a courageous leader is the one who puts down his cap and opposes political power. .

On the Sahelian front too, the last few months have been tough, depending on the strategic transfers of the Head of State. General Lecointre will first have been the man of the "surge", (

Editor's note: the surge

) the strengthening of Barkhane in 2020 from 4,600 to 5,100 men, which resulted in tactical successes and the weakening of ISIS jihadists in the Greater Sahara. But other katibas, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, have appeared and are now descending from the Sahel to the coastal states of West Africa. Worse, between coups d'état in Mali and the delicate succession of President Marshal Déby in Chad, the political situation is deteriorating, democracy is being flouted, the Sahelian populations remain abandoned by their States. Sometimes, the entourage of the CEMA is annoyed by a lack of creativity of the French diplomats, of their extreme caution, which would prevent Paris from weighing all its weight in favor of a political solution. While there can be no "decisive military victory", repeated Lecointre.

If there is one thing which pained this Saint-cyrien engaged in the navy troops and shocked his entourage, it is the questioning, by the most excited, of the rebels of his combatant value. With his high presence, his phlegmatic and reserved port, his intellectual side, host of the strategic review Inflexions, the man is known as the hero of Vrbanja, this Bosnian bridge that he reconquered in 1995 from the Serbian forces, then a young captain in the heads of his "porpoises" with bayonets.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2021-06-15

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