“Human dignity is worth fighting for”
In recent weeks, French political life has been turbulent. Have you been worried?
I have a personal opinion that I will not express. As Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, I find myself at the head of the institution of dignity and therefore of reserve, of nobility of attitude. It is the same requirement of political neutrality to which I subjected myself as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
In a few days, the Olympic Games will open. Nearly 20,000 soldiers will join the police to secure the event. Are the conditions in place for its success?
I think of the work that the military governor of Paris, the police prefect of Paris, the police chief of Île-de-France have been doing for months… The energy deployed by the dedicated teams impresses me. As for terrorist threats, that is the responsibility of the security and intelligence forces, which are of course on the alert. France has exceptional know-how in organizing major international meetings, and I therefore have no particular reason to feel worried.
The latest military programming law approved a budget increase of 413 billion euros for the period 2024-2030. Does the effort seem sufficient to you given the international threats?
The reduction in the defense effort, which has been very significant for twenty years, was undeniable. This ended with the first military programming law (LPM) wanted by Emmanuel Macron during his first term. The latest LPM is also part of this effort. One thing, above all, puzzles me: to what extent does public opinion understand and measure the need for a rearmament effort? I don’t know. The amount of the budget must always be compared to other public spending. In which other sectors are we prepared to spend less? This should be the subject of a major debate. In our country, defense issues, in general, are not discussed enough.
France is facing a very difficult situation in the Sahel, in the face of political instability, the hostility of the populations, the growing influence of China… What role can it still play?
I am convinced that nothing is possible outside the European framework, whether in Ukraine, in the wider Mediterranean or in Africa. We belong to an alliance, NATO, led by the United States, which considers that Asia is challenging its world domination. What is Europe doing in this context? Is it asserting itself as a political player in its own right? The European Union has an advantage: it has a common foreign and security policy based on a global vision, which is not the case for NATO, a purely military alliance. As for Africa, the challenge appears considerable. Its population will double in the next twenty years. How do you expect these fragile, developing countries to be able to cope if we do not do our part?
By stating last winter that he would not rule out sending ground troops to support Ukraine, was the President of the Republic playing his role?
This had one major merit: it created a debate. It is surprising that this did not take place earlier. As if, before the President made this statement, the war in Ukraine did not exist, as if it were a virtual exercise or a conflict that only concerned Ukrainians. As long as there were no arguments for or against, people did not feel concerned, which seems to me to be likely to disarm the civic spirit. For a soldier, it is terrible: he goes to kill in the name of his compatriots and they do not give a damn. However, this soldier is only the armed wing of the nation. In the context of a debate, it would be possible to ask everyone the question: do you feel your responsibility involved in this extraordinary act of unleashing force, to the point of transgressing the most extreme of taboos, which consists of killing?
This existential question emerges in your book. Personally, to whom do you owe your vocation as a soldier?
I had two heroes in my family. First of all, my father, who had an extraordinary personality, was a very handsome man, very intelligent, cultured, and impressed us all with his stature, his austere and severe side. He commanded the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine The Redoubtable . And then there was my uncle Hélie, whom I never knew, who died in combat at the age of 23, burned alive in Algeria. This uncle made more accessible to me the status of hero that seemed unattainable to me when I observed my father.
Outside of your family world, do you have other heroes?
My reference figure, the one who inspires me, is Christ. And before him, I was captivated by my patron saint, Francis of Assisi, very marked by a beautiful book by Julien Green, Brother FrancisThis saint has an incredible personality: a gentle man, a madman, a great mystic.
Where does the desire to join the army come from?
It is rooted in self-doubt. This question haunts every young man or woman. It is very difficult to have good self-esteem. I have always asked myself the question of what I am worth and whether I value myself enough. At the beginning of a vocation, there is this: the uncertainty that one feels about oneself, about one’s own dignity, and the dissatisfaction that pushes everyone, to varying degrees no doubt – because some do not have this anxiety – to challenge themselves and try to rise to these challenges. Basically, the desire to rise above oneself. Personally, I told myself that I had to be able to equal my father and my uncle. Later, I discovered that self-doubt ultimately counts more than family lineage, military in my case.
How can a soldier who has faith fulfill his duty to defeat the enemy, even to kill him, without trembling?
The objective is the one you state: to defeat the enemy and not to kill. But one can, in fact, be led to kill in order to conquer. To understand this, one must measure the risk inherent in the soldier’s mission: I give death or I am ready to give it at the risk of my own existence. As if we were reestablishing a kind of deontological balance between the death that I can give and my own life that I offer, in an almost redemptive function. It may seem strange but this “deontological rebalancing” makes it more acceptable to have to do this job. And it also constitutes the foundation of the very ancient values of chivalry.
After your farewell to arms, in 2021, you chose to become prison visitor. What did this commitment teach you?
For a long time, I have been struck by this text called the “last judgment” in the Gospel of Matthew: “I was naked and you clothed me; (…) I was in prison, and you came to me!” As a prison visitor, you try to restore people’s dignity. One of the greatest difficulties of this job is that you have to talk to them. Listen, of course, but not only. My view of the prison system has changed. When someone joins the army, we already think about the day they will get out and we tell them. Where to retrain? In the prison system, we don’t think about it at all. We are only in a logic of punishment, of exclusion from society, whereas the question of getting out should be an obsession.
At the end of your book, Between wars, You write: “Since we must kill deliberately, it must be for a sacred cause.” What is this cause?
There can be several. The defense of the nation, the preservation of its vital and essential interests. We can also fight for what the French nation embodies, its motto, and in particular fraternity. I am in love with my country. France carries a universal ambition, that of human dignity. It is worth fighting for, no doubt.
* Chapter 25, verse 36.