The French army is angry.
"They gave their skin to destroy the Islamism to which you are giving concessions on our soil," they wrote. In this second open letter following the first open letter signed by French retired army generals, the Fre…
The French army is angry.
"They gave their skin to destroy the Islamism to which you are giving concessions on our soil," they wrote. In this second open letter following the first open letter signed by French retired army generals, the French #military staff says threat of punishment ‘’quite perverse’’ and repeats : ‘’Civil war is brewing in France’’. French soldiers also accuse government of trying to ‘’silence’’ warnings of #civilwar. They support the observations made in the first letter : Islam, mass immigration and multiculturalism are destroying #France. Serving members of the French military have fired a second salvo at Emmanuel Macron’s government in an open letter accusing it of “cowardice, deceit, perversion”, just weeks after a first letter said the country was heading for “civil war”. It was reportedly signed anonymously “by active military personnel” and is appended with a petition for others to sign.
The first letter signed by a number of retired generals as well as at least 18 serving soldiers warned of the “disintegration” of France evoking what it called the “perils” of Islamic extremist and “the hordes from the banlieue”. It also accused anti-racism groups of creating “hatred between communities” and cautioned that “lax” government policies could spark chaos requiring military action to “protect our civilizational values”.
Afterwards, furious French ministers accused the signatories, who were supported by the far-right Rassemblement National party leader, Marine Le Pen, of breaking military rules and threatened legal action against them.
The second letter, published late on Sunday evening, batted off threats of punishment and launched an all-out attack on the government, accusing it of “trampling” on veterans’ honour and “sullying” their reputation “when their only fault is to love their country and mourn its visible decline”.
“To quibble about the form of our elders’ tribune instead of recognizing the evidence of their findings, one must 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". It concluded: “Once again, civil war is brewing in France and you know it perfectly well.”
By 10am Monday morning, Valeurs Actuelles, the French newspaper which published the letter, claimed 76,461 people had signed the petition. It brought a swift and damning response from the French government and politicians across the spectrum. Darmanin said it was a crude manoeuvre in the run-up to regional elections next month and denounced the lack of courage of its unnamed authors. “These are anonymous people. Is that courage? To be anonymous?” he said. “What a strange and courageous society that gives such a voice to anonymous people.”
