"Chef, what are we going to have for dinner for Christmas?" Emmanuel Macron set the tone by inviting the head of the Élysée Palace, Fabrice Desvignes, to recite his menu in the tent where some 350 French soldiers of Operation Chammal (the French part of an international coalition that has been fighting ISIS since 2014) are gathered, on the projected air base in the Levant (BAP), in the bitter cold of the Jordanian desert. Pâté croûte, foie gras, smoked salmon, yellow chicken supreme from the Landes with morels, chocolate hazelnut yule log, Corsican clementines...
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The cook, who "applied himself as if for a state dinner", brought in hundreds of kilos of products from the Rungis market. The military appreciates it. "It's good to be back in French gastronomy... and it honours us and warms our hearts to hear these words of gratitude from the president who saluted our sense of sacrifice, it's Christmas before Christmas," smile Elise and Claudia, deployed here for four months. While he wished for "a little carefreeness" for this shared meal, the president, head of the Armed Forces, also marked the seriousness. In front of the airmen and soldiers, he praised "the choice [you make] every day to give your life to the point of sacrifice", which seals the "age-old pact between the nation and the army".
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