Article
French
ID: <
10670/1.jb073h>
Abstract
After having spent my childhood in Switzerland and my youth in France, in regions where the Army has always been present and respected, with no military background "running in the family", I joined the Army as a private. This was a rather closed and austere world, with often worn-out American equipment. Its image in society was still marked by the after-effects of the political and cultural divides of the century. I got to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, the reputation of which was very prestigious, but where every-day life was rather dull. Education and the values there were still largely based on the study of the recent campaigns in Indochina and Algeria.In the 70s’, I was Lieutenant and Captain in the Alps. Training was difficult in the mountains. Although we had learned the virtual nature of an engagement following the deterrence doctrine, we were trained to face the Warsaw pact in the framework of homeland defence and the protection of the nuclear installation on the Albion plateau, using the anti-guerrilla warfare techniques tested during recent conflicts. The reality of other conflicts on Asian or Eastern soil seemed very distant to us.The way we understood conflicts and crises changed notably in the 80s’. The major political change in our country strengthened the French unity regarding defence issues. Much more than this, major events (such as the invasion of Afghanistan, the sudden burst of syndicalism in Poland, the Khmer genocide) as well as the development of peace operations progressively acknowledged the end of the virtual nature of engagements. They legitimated and required the adaptation of our military capacities, a fact which however also implied successive downsizing and restructuring. Intervention thus became the rule once again, as was seen with the first missions of peace soldiers in the Lebanon. Faced with this prospect of going on operations, our items of equipment were being modernised, our training became harder and the motivation and willpower of the soldiers was equally strengthened.In the 90s’, I was given positions with responsibilities which made me participate in the major transformations of our armed forces: professionalization and the notable evolution of their conditions of engagement, the reduction of the financial assets and the significant downsizing.