Outcry at army chief's warning France must prepare to 'lose children' in war

A stark warning from France's new army chief about the country "losing its children" in a potential war with Russia has sharply divided political opinion.

Gen Fabien Mandon, who took over as army chief-of-staff in September, told a congress of mayors on Tuesday that France's biggest weakness in today's dangerous times was the lack of a will to fight.

"We have the know-how, and we have the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow," he said.

"What we are lacking - and this is where you [the mayors] have a role to play - is the spirit. The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we are to protect what we are.

"If our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children … or to suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are indeed at risk.

"You must speak of this in your towns and villages."

The remarks were in line with other pronouncements the general has made, warning of a coming confrontation with Russia and stressing the need for psychological as well as economic and military preparation.

But they were condemned as warmongering and out-of-place by political leaders on the left as well as the nationalist right.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who heads the far-left France Unbowed party, said he "totally disagreed" with the chief-of-staff.

"It's not his job to invite mayors or anyone else to start making military preparations that no-one has agreed on," he said.

The leader of the Communist Party Fabien Roussel said: "No! 51,000 memorials to the war-dead in our towns and villages - aren't they enough? Yes to national defence, no to intolerably belligerent speeches."

Practically alone on the left, Raphael Glucksmann - the strongly pro-Ukraine MEP and head of the Place Publique [Public Square] party - came out in support of General Mandon.

"By the strength of their reactions, these ostriches merely underline the state of denial and capitulation that is so strong in the French political class," he said.

"Gen Mandon is right to alert the nation about the need to change its state of mind."

For the far-right National Rally, Sébastien Chenu said the general had committed an "error" because he did not have the "legitimacy" to pronounce on such matters. But another senior figure Louis Aliot said it was "necessary to be ready to die for one's country … if the war is just or to ensure the survival of the nation".

In an interview with a defence magazine earlier this month, Mandon said that "by living for so long in peacetime, we find it hard to fully comprehend the dangers which now surround us and the intransigence of certain players.

"The Russians for their part do not know peace. They have been at war in Ukraine for years and they are ready to pursue it."

In October, he told the National Assembly's defence committee that "the first objective I have given the armed forces is to be ready for a confrontation in three or four years, which may come in the form of a test.

"Russia is a country which could be tempted to pursue war on our continent and that is the determining factor as I make my plans," he said.

Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin and government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon both came to the defence of the general.

"Our policy is to do everything to avoid war but at the same time prepare, and consolidate that collective moral force without which no nation can survive the test," said Vautrin.

Other senior European defence figures have also warned of the need to prepare for a possible clash with Russia - particularly if it disengages from Ukraine following any peace deal.

German defence minister Boris Pistorius told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that the general view had been that a Russian act of aggression could come from the year 2029.

"But now some are saying that it could be envisaged from 2028 - and there are even experts who think we might have just lived through our last peacetime summer."