France’s Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin backed top military officer General Fabien Mandon, who has called on the country to show “fortitude” and “accept losing our children” in order to “protect what we are,” warning that Russia is preparing for confrontation with Western nations by 2030.
General Mandon told the Congress of French Mayors on Tuesday that France risks failure if it is not prepared to accept casualties and economic pain from prioritising defence production.
“If our country flinches because it is not prepared to accept losing its children, because we have to say things, suffering economically because priorities will go to defence production, then we are at risk,” the chief of defence staff said.
“We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the Moscow regime from trying its luck further afield. What we don’t have is the fortitude to accept the pain of protecting what we are.”
The comments follow General Mandon’s warning to MPs in October that the French army was planning for a “clash with Moscow in three or four years’ time.”
Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin defended Mandon on Thursday, saying the general was “fully entitled to express his views on the threats that continue to grow.”
“His comments, taken out of context for political purposes, are the military language of a leader who, every day, knows that young soldiers are risking their lives for the nation,” she wrote on X.
“Our responsibility is clear: to avoid any confrontation but to prepare for it, and to consolidate the spirit of defence, that collective moral strength without which no nation could stand up to the test.”
Opposition up in arms over ‘belligerent’ rhetoric
France Unbowed party (LFI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon expressed “total disagreement” with General Mandon’s remarks, arguing the general had overstepped his role.
“It is not up to him to invite mayors or anyone else to war preparations decided by no-one,” Mélenchon said, adding that General Mandon should not “plan sacrifices that would be the consequence of our diplomatic failures on which his public opinion has not been sought.”
The radical left-wing party issued a statement calling on President Emmanuel Macron to publicly reprimand General Mandon and reaffirm that France’s strategic orientations are “the exclusive domain of democratic debate and civilian authorities under the control of parliament.”
French Communist Party National Secretary Fabien Roussel called the intervention “dangerous,” saying: “No to unbearable talk of going to war. In the 2026 budget, 7 billion more for the armed forces and 7 billion less for local authorities. We are faced with a choice for society. We choose peace and refuse the logic of war.”
Sébastien Chenu, vice-president of the far-right National Rally (RN), said General Mandon lacked “the legitimacy” to make such statements, adding: “Or else the President of the Republic asked him to do so, and that’s even bigger.”
Louis Aliot, RN mayor of Perpignan, said: “You have to be prepared to die for your country, on the other hand, the war being waged has to be just or necessity has to mean that the nation’s very survival is at stake. I don’t think there are many French people who are prepared to go and die for Ukraine.”
‘We are entering a new era,’ government says
The government on Thursday published a guide titled “Tous responsables” (“All Responsible”) designed to prepare the French public “to deal with a major crisis, whatever its origin.”
The document, produced by the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security, mentions the risk of a “threat linked to a major commitment by our armed forces outside national territory.”
“France will have to rely on every citizen, whether through a commitment to the Armed Forces, to the various operational reserves, or by providing your voluntary assistance to keep the country running, wherever your skills might be useful,” it states.
General Mandon’s comments echo the National Strategic Review published by the French government on 14 July, which identified Russia as “the most direct threat today and in the years to come to France’s interests, those of its partners and allies, and to the very stability of the European continent and the Euro-Atlantic area.”
The review warned that France is “entering a new era, that of a particularly high risk of a major high-intensity war outside national territory in Europe, which would involve France and its allies, particularly European allies, by 2030, and would see our territory targeted at the same time by massive hybrid actions.”
The document called on Europeans “to assume greater responsibility for the security of the continent” and to “deploy all the means at their disposal to better defend themselves and deter any new aggression.”
NATO recently warned that Russia could be militarily ready to launch a major attack within five years.
NATO chief Mark Rutte urged member countries to strengthen their defence capabilities, claiming Russia currently outstrips the alliance in ammunition production.
“Illusions will not protect us,” he said. “We cannot dream away danger. Hope is not a strategy. NATO must become a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance.”