Free Republic

Just as President Jacques Chirac was vehemently arguing against invading Iraq in late 2002, General Philippe Rondot wrote that he had been given the green light to "recover" top officials including Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister. Previously unseen extracts of Gen Rondot's private diaries were reprinted in the newspaper Libération. In a passage dated Dec 3, 2002, the general refers to an "agreement in principle to 'recover' if necessary Mr Aziz and Al-Rafai" – said to be a senior Ba'ath Party politician. The two men were believed to have been considered useful to the French while Gen Rondot knew Aziz...

French Aircraft Carrier Sails Without Nukes The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle with air wing on deck. By Hans M. Kristensen France no longer deploys nuclear weapons on its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle under normal circumstances but stores the weapons on land, according to French officials. President Nicolas Sarkozy declared in March 2008 that France “could and should be more transparent with respect to its nuclear arsenal than anyone ever has been.” But while the other nuclear powers declared long ago that their naval weapons were offloaded or scrapped after the Cold War ended, a similar announcement...

Bombing exercise 'caused fires' Dozens of homes destroyed Authorities angry at military MILITARY bombing practice has caused one of France's worst fires for three years which continues to rage on the eastern outskirts of Marseille. The fire has burnt dozens of homes but claimed no victims. The wildfire was caused by military practice shelling which hit the eastern Trois-Ponts suburb of the southern city forcing the evacuation of scores of residents. "There are a few dozen houses burnt in the Trois-Ponts district but there are no victims," fire brigade spokesman Samuel Champon said. "There are more homes threatened than vehicles...

The French Army were branded ‘imbeciles’ today after an artillery exercise caused a massive fire which destroyed dozens of houses and left hundreds homeless. Rather than improving the marksmanship of the Foreign Legion, the shelling led to mass evacuations in a suburb of Marseilles.

(Planes flew a distance equivalent to flying to the moon and back 63 times) Ceremonies have been taking place in Berlin to mark the 60th anniversary of the ending of the blockade of West Berlin by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. In 1948, Stalin cut off all land links into West Berlin in an attempt to force out British, French and US troops. Instead, the Western nations launched the biggest airlift in history to keep 2.25 million residents from starving. For the next 11 months, planes landed every two minutes, bringing in total more than 2.5m tonnes of supplies. Seventy-eight aircrew...

Fourteen suspected Somali pirates have been captured in separate operations by a French frigate and the Seychelles coast guard. French commandos on the frigate Nivose caught 11 suspects some 900 kms (560 miles) off the Somali coast, the French Defence Ministry says. The Nivose is reported to have alerted the Seychelles authorities to help them capture the other three. Somali pirates are currently holding nearly 20 ships for ransom. On Saturday a Greek-owned ship with a Ukrainian crew was hijacked by Somali pirates south-west of the Seychelles, a seafarers' group says. On the same day a Portuguese warship thwarted an...

French naval forces have detained 11 suspected pirates after raiding a pirate "mother ship" in the Indian Ocean, French military officials said Wednesday. The French forces had been responding to a distress call from a Liberian cargo ship that was being attacked by pirates using rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. A French military helicopter reached the scene, then reportedly followed the two small pirate skiffs back to a 30-foot boat apparently being used as a base for the pirates. French forces from the Nivose — part of a European Union anti-piracy task force — then raided the larger boat, seizing...

A French warship has captured 11 pirates off the coast of Kenya, amid calls for the international community to deal with the problem of piracy. The pirates were captured by a warship from an EU piracy patrol, hours after a failed attack on a US ship. News of the incidents came as the UN special envoy for Somalia said the attacks threatened international peace. He urged financial backers of the "bandits", as he called them, to be identified and held accountable. The latest attack involved pirates firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a US-flagged cargo ship, the Liberty Sun,...

A FRENCH warship patrolling waters off East Africa as part of an EU anti-piracy force has intercepted a pirate "mother ship" and arrested 11 gunmen, the French defence ministry said. The frigate chased the pirates 500 nautical miles (926km) east of the Kenyan coast after tracking them overnight from the scene of a failed attack on a Liberian-registered vessel, a spokesman said. "The pirates were sailing a 10m mother ship carrying 17 drums holding 200 litres of fuel each and two assault skiffs," he said, adding that after the overnight interception the captives were being held on board the French...

In admission that will cast fresh doubts over the controversial decision to free Florent Lemacon and four other hostages by force, defence minister Herve Morin said he could not rule out the possibility that he had been hit by a French commando's bullet. "There will be a judicial inquiry and therefore an autopsy," he told French radio. "One cannot exclude that during the exchange of fire between the pirates and commandos the shot was French," Mr Morin spoke out as the piracy crisis on the Indian Ocean escalated yet further, with yet more vessels attacked and no sign of an...

A French military operation to free a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates backfired today when one of the hostages was killed, highlighting the perils facing US forces trying to free an American seaman being held captive in a parallel pirate standoff. Four French hostages, including a three-year-old child, were rescued on board the Tanit, which was hijacked en route to Zanzibar last weekend. Two pirates also died in the raid, according to president Nicolas Sarkozy's office. Despite the death of one of the hostages, the French government stood by the commando-style tactics – which they have used before – and...

NDJAMENA (AFP) - European peacekeepers were hunting for a "deranged" French Foreign Legion officer who fled after going on a shooting spree in Chad, killing two comrades, a Togolese UN soldier and a farmer. The shootings began Tuesday at Camp des Etoiles, the main base of the European peacekeepers near the airport in the eastern town of Abeche near the Sudan border, a French military official said. "Gunshots were heard in the (military) camp and then the two legionnaires were found and then a little further away the body of the Togolese soldier was discovered," said Captain Christophe Prazuck. The...

French warship Sunday foiled attempts by Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden to seize two cargo vessels and intercepted 19 people, the French president's office said. "Three days after a French vessel thwarted an attack on a Panamanian cargo ship" the frigate Jean de Vienne conducted a "decisive action" against "two new attacks" it said in a statement. "The 19 Somali pirates who tried to seize the two boats were intercepted," it added, saying they carried weapons, ammunition and material for boarding ships. ...

DICKEY: Some Americans call the French “surrender monkeys.” JONES: France has probably the most expeditionary army [i.e., ready to deploy to distant battlefields] in Europe. And writ large. They have impressive military capabilities across the whole spectrum of operations. They’re good at peacekeeping; their Air Force is modern, state of the art; their Navy is modern; their land Army I know about because I served with them in northern Iraq 11 years ago, and I know their generals–this is a very, very fine army.

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”....

hockingly positive views of our forces in Afghanistan are revealed in this translation of a post by a French OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams) infantryman working with our toops there. A couple of brief excerpts: Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans. [....] Each man knows he can count on the...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Tensions heated up on the high seas, as the French Navy captured nine pirates near the Gulf of Aden and a Somali pirate warned Thursday that the crew of a hijacked Ukrainian arms ship would be killed if NATO forces attacked. The French Navy intercepted the pirates in two small boats about 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the nearest coast, finding assault rifles, grenade-launchers, grappling hooks and ladders onboard. The nine were handed over Thursday to Somali officials, and French officials received assurances the prisoners would be treated according to international conventions. "We wanted to send...

The "secret" file quoted by a Canadian newspaper said that the French troops ambushed on Aug 18 in a valley east of Kabul did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment to sustain them through two days of fighting. The report is likely to fan tensions ahead of a French parliamentary debate over President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to send extra troops to Afghanistan. It promises to be heated, but Mr Sarkozy's decision will be approved as his ruling centre-right UMP party holds a strong majority.

A picture of a Taliban fighter in the uniform of a dead French soldier drew anger in France Wednesday as the army came under new fire over its conduct in an ambush that killed 10 paratroopers in Afghanistan last month.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday pledged to continue the fight in Afghanistan while attending a state funeral in Paris for the 10 French soldiers killed in a Taliban ambush earlier in the week. Sarkozy, who was accompanied by other French leaders at the funeral ceremony in a church at Les Invalides, said France will not give up its fight against terrorism in Afghanistan "We don't have the right to lose over there, we cannot renounce our values," he said. "We cannot let the barbarians triumph because a defeat at the other side of the world will be paid for...