France’s top military commander has triggered a political firestorm after going rogue to warn the public that citizens across the country must prepare for their own children to die in a war with Russia.
The warning from the leaders of the French armed forces is a chilling escalation in Europe’s increasingly militarized rhetoric.
General Fabien Mandon, Chief of the French Defense Staff, delivered the stunning remarks at the annual congress of the Association of Mayors of France, by openly declaring that the nation is about to go to war.
Mandon told local leaders that the people of France must accept death, sacrifice, and economic hardship to confront Moscow.
“Russia is convinced that the Europeans are weak,” Mandon asserted.
“However, we are strong, fundamentally stronger than Russia.”
He continued by insisting that France possesses the economic and demographic power to “dissuade Moscow’s regime.”
What France lacks, he argued, is the “strength of soul to accept pain to protect what we are.”
He then spelled out that, in practice, “pain” means the death of French citizens in a foreign conflict.
“If our country is weak because it is not ready to accept losing its children — because it’s better to say things clearly — [and] to suffer economically because the priority will be the defense sector, then we are at risk,” Mandon told the nation’s mayors.
He urged them to carry that message back to their own towns and communities, effectively instructing civic leaders to prepare French families for the idea of young people dying in a European war that voters never asked for.
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The backlash was immediate.
Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon blasted the general for overstepping his authority, accusing him of pushing the French public toward a war “decided by no one” and forecasting national “sacrifices” that citizens had never agreed to.
Mélenchon demanded to know why President Emmanuel Macron was allowing such rhetoric.
The controversy comes as Macron positions himself as one of NATO’s most aggressive supporters of the Ukraine proxy war, repeatedly warning about a supposed Russian plan to reassemble the Soviet empire and invade Europe.
However, these are claims that Moscow has dismissed as fantasy.
Meanwhile, facts on the ground tell a different story.
Russian forces control roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.
In addition, President Vladimir Putin recently repeated his willingness to end the conflict if Ukraine cedes the Donbas and parts of two southern regions.
But rather than pushing for negotiations, European leaders spent the week in meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, discussing how to plug Ukraine’s massive financial shortfalls.
The unelected European Commission now says the EU will need to give Kiev $150 billion over the next two years.
The move comes even as economies across the continent buckle under record inflation and energy instability.
Zelensky also signed an agreement to purchase 100 Rafale fighter jets from France.
However, it’s a deal that will take several years to fulfill and require at least three years to train Ukrainian pilots.
As Brussels funnels billions into a war with no visible off-ramp, France’s top general is now conditioning the public to accept the deaths of an entire generation.
Yet, this is not for French national defense, but for a geopolitical project far from home.
For many Europeans, this is the clearest sign yet that their leaders are steering them toward a catastrophic conflict while ordinary people are expected to bear the cost.
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