INTERVIEW
While the emotion remains strong, the day after the death of thirteen French soldiers of the Barkhane force in Mali, France, engaged in the region since January 2013 before an expansion of the operation in the Sahel, must she return on her military engagement? This is the question raised on Tuesday by the deputies of insubordinate France by asking the government "to open a serious and rational discussion to consider the ways out of a war whose meaning escapes now many of our compatriots and of Malians themselves ". A "legitimate" request, according to former Defense Minister Alain Richard, invited from Europe 1.
Noting that Jean-Luc Mélenchon "has a structured knowledge of geopolitical relations", Alain Richard believes that when the elected LFI claim "a debate to know if the continuation of this operation is justified, with possibly reinforcements, and if it has the understanding of our fellow citizens ", this question is" perfectly justified ".
"Maintain the legitimacy and effectiveness of this mandate"
Because, for the former Minister of Defense, the population's support for French military interventions is paramount. "In the dozens of cases in which I have seen a country decide to engage the forces, there are actually two mandates," he says. "An official mandate issued by the United Nations, in which one legally defines to the country its objectives to pursue and the limits to follow, but also a mandate which is the acceptance of your public opinion".
However, Alain Richard notes, "the French are much less reluctant to external commitments than other European peoples, who have become much more pacifist". And if he is open to a debate on the French commitment, Senator LREM Val-d'Oise recalls that the majority and the government seek "to maintain the legitimacy and effectiveness of this mandate"