The concern that Marine Le Pen could move into the Elysée Palace next May has gripped the French army leadership.

The decision of Chief of Staff Francois Lecointre to retire from active service a year earlier than planned is not to be understood otherwise.

The 59-year-old five-star general justified his resignation with the wish that his successor would be determined in good time before the presidential election in spring 2022.

Michaela Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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    "I want to avoid a political instrumentalization of the general staff," said Lecointre in an unusual farewell interview on LCI television. "The neutrality of the armed forces must be preserved at all costs," he said. It is one of the powers of the presidents in France to appoint the chief of staff. Since the end of the Algerian War, fear has not been so great that the army could play a political role in France. President Macron immediately announced that the previous Commander-in-Chief of the Army, 56-year-old General Thierry Burkhard, would succeed Lecointre.

    The change of baton is to take place shortly after the traditional military parade on July 14th.

    Macron praised Lecointre as a "great soldier, military chief and public servant".

    He is said to have tried to the last to persuade him to stay.

    “My mission is over,” said Lecointre, who has enjoyed a reputation as an intellectual since he headed the strategy review “Inflexions”.

    Lecointre corrected the interviewers who referred to him as President Macron's chief of staff.

    “I am not serving Emmanuel Macron.

    I serve the President of the Republic ”.

    Appeals from generals and anonymous soldiers to distance themselves from those politically responsible made him uncomfortable, he said.

    "Boot Lick Macrons"

    At the end of April, twenty retired generals had issued a manifesto in the magazine Valeurs actuelles, denouncing the “laxity” of the politically responsible in the face of the threat of Islamism and, literally, “the hordes in the banlieue”. “France is in danger. We remain soldiers and cannot ignore what is happening to our beautiful country, ”they wrote. In a second appeal, active soldiers urged the government to allow the country to drift towards civil war. They supported the retired generals who had offered to save France on a "dangerous mission" in an emergency. The soldiers attached great importance to maintaining anonymity.

    Presidential candidate Le Pen welcomed the calls and said she shared the soldiers' concerns. Chief of Staff Lecointre threatened sanctions, disciplinary proceedings and expulsion from the army. So far it is not known whether the supporters of the calls were really prosecuted. One of the most prominent signatories, General Christian Piquemal, used the threat of sanctions to insult Lecointre as “Macron's bootlicker” and “traitor” and to accuse him of lacking a sense of honor.