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A second French soldier died on Wednesday from wounds suffered in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) blamed on the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, President Emmanuel Macron said.
A first soldier, staff sergeant Florian Montorio, was shot dead in the Saturday ambush, for which Hezbollah has denied responsibility.
“Corporal Anicet Girardin…brought home yesterday from Lebanon, where he was badly wounded by Hezbollah fighters, died this morning of the consequences of his wounds,” Macron wrote in a post on X.
One of three soldiers hurt in the same attack, Girardin, a member of a specialist dog-handling unit, was part of a mission “to clear a route booby-trapped with an improvised explosive device,” Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin posted on X.
“Coming under sustained fire from concealed Hezbollah fighters at very close range, he moved to aid his section leader who had just fallen, only to be seriously hit in turn,” she added.
Macron and Vautrin offered their condolences to Girardin’s family and loved ones.
He is the third French soldier to die since the start of the fighting in the Middle East, after Montorio and the killing of Arnaud Frion last month by an Iranian drone in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Both Macron and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have blamed Iran-backed Hezbollah for the Saturday attack on peacekeepers belonging to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
French soldiers in UNIFIL “are working bravely and determinedly in service of France and peace in Lebanon,” Macron wrote.
Established in 1978, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries who patrol the Blue Line, the UN-drawn border between Lebanon and Israel, while also engaging in efforts to de-escalate tensions between the two sides.
In August last year, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to terminate the peacekeeping force at the end of 2026, bowing to demands from the United States and its close ally Israel.
Additional sources • AFP