French defense minister: The army is incapable of participating in large military operations

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Wednesday that the modern French army had not been formed with the requirement to take part in large-scale military operations and has long been underfunded.

“Even if our army today could not participate in a ‘high-intensity’ conflict… But imagine a French soldier in Mali surrounded by an armed group of terrorists: that is high intensity! It is more correct to say that it is impossible to take part in large-scale operations. This happened for a number of reasons: after the dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, the governments of previous presidents did not form our army to participate in large-scale military operations, it was irrelevant.

The second reason is a significant decrease in its funding, sometimes for significant, sometimes for insignificant reasons,” Lecornu said in an interview with French broadcaster LCI.

The remarks came as comments on the remarks  made by Gen. Pierre de Villiers, a former chief of the French Defense Staff, in which he said that the French army is incapable of high-intensity warfare today.

He added that the army needs a much larger budget to modernize weapons and equipment, stockpile ammunition, and improve logistics capabilities than the French government is currently providing.

E.M