French Defense Minister Sebastian Le Cornu recognized the inability of the French army to conduct large-scale military operations and protracted wars.
Commenting on the French army’s ability to engage in “quick fights,” Le Cornu said in a statement to LCI on Wednesday: “Imagine a French soldier in Mali, where he is surrounded by a group of terrorists. High-tempo battles! But it would be more correct to speak not about the possibility of participating in large-scale operations.
He continued: “This is due to a number of reasons, since after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the heads of our previous governments did not work to build an army so that it could participate in major military operations, and this problem did not arise immediately.”
He added that “the second reason is a significant reduction in funding, sometimes for important reasons, and sometimes for banal reasons.”
This came in response to a statement by the former Chief of Staff of the French Army, Pierre de Villiers, who stressed the incapacity of the French army to wage a wide-ranging war and that it required much more money than was available.
Source: RIA Novosti