The Real Threat Of Civil War In France

by Gawain TowlerMay 10, 2021

Snip

In response, a handful of serving soldiers who had signed the first letter, are being hauled before court martials. In politics, Florence Parly, the armed forces minister, pointed out “The armies are not there to campaign but to defend France” and the leading leftist Melanchon has called for a purge of the entire military.

Le Pen called on the Generals to support her bid for the Presidency next year, agreeing with them about “lawless areas, crime, self-hatred and our leaders’ rejection of patriotism”, but making it clear that “these problems can only be solved by politics”.

In the years since the appalling massacres at the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and the Bataclan theatre there have been a constant stream of religious murders. The beheading of the teacher Samuel Paty last year, and more recently the failure to even try the murder of the retired Jewish doctor, Sarah Halimi, because her murderer happened to have consumed cannabis, are strengthening public concern. The fact that he cried “Allahu Akba” and “I killed the Shaitan” during his attack meant nothing to the courts, but a lot to the populace.

Now in the same magazine there has been a follow up letter. This time anonymous, as its authors and signatories are serving soldiers. The anonymity no doubt occasioned by threats of purges to the military.

This new letter takes direct aim at the political response. It accuses the Government of taking aim at the retired soldiers while utterly ignoring the points that they were making:

“To quibble about the form of our elders’ tribune instead of recognising the evidence of their findings, you have to be cowardly. To invoke a misinterpreted duty of reserve in order to silence French citizens, one must be very deceitful. To encourage the army’s senior officers to take a stand and expose themselves, before angrily sanctioning them as soon as they write anything other than battle reports, one must be quite perverse.

“Cowardice, deceit, perversion: this is not our vision of the hierarchy. On the contrary, the army is, par excellence, the place where we speak the truth because we commit our lives…

Once again, civil war is brewing in France and you know it perfectly well.”

----------