France’s Role in Three Conflicts Displays a More Muscular Policy

[Arnie100]

US made this thing happen...

How exactly...when it was France calling for airstrikes? Are you telling me that France can't handle these kinds of actions? That they don't have similar weapons like tomohawks and JDAMs?

[Mat_fr]

Well the US Navy launched more than 100 Tomahawks in one night. I don't know if it was oversized but be sure that we couldn't do the same thing. We're the second contributor in number of planes engaged but we don't have naval cruise missiles (Scalp Naval to come with the first Fremm frigate in 2 years) and we launched 10 Scalp cruise missiles from Rafales and Mirage 2000D. I don't know how many AASM Hammers and GBU12-49 we launched.

We have the only one aircraft carrier off Libya but fact is we do not have US fire power. USN and USAF strikes did accelerate things.

[bve]

If only some of that "Muscle power" was used in France towns suburbs too.... Obviously it's easier for Carla Bruni's husband to drop some bombs on Lybia than to get rid of youth gangs over here.

Are you serious? I sincerely hope, for our country's sake, that you are joking.

How exactly...when it was France calling for airstrikes? Are you telling me that France can't handle these kinds of actions? That they don't have similar weapons like tomohawks and JDAMs?

Well, we don't (yet) have any equivalent to the Tomahawk; I think the Scalp Naval is planned to be ready by 2013 only, with the FREMMs. But we do have Scalp-EGs, and AASMs, both of which have been proven to allow the Rafales (and M2000) to take out about anything that needs taking out, including SAM sites (see in French: http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-d...1315093_53.php ).
But of course it would have been very expensive to do it on our own, and that's the main problem. Apparently, in ordnance only it has cost us around €30M (source, in French also: http://www.marianne2.fr/blogsecretde...uros_a212.html ).

edit: Mat_fr's answer is better than mine

[JCR]

Thanks to Bernard Levy and the rest of the french neocons (disguised as philosophers) and Sarkozy's low ratings, France is having a phantom world power fit.
It will pass...

Problem is, bombing for morale reasons always tends to lead to the wrong results, look at Bosnia (islamization, still no national unity) and Kosovo (Mafia)

[Universals]

How exactly...when it was France calling for airstrikes? Are you telling me that France can't handle these kinds of actions? That they don't have similar weapons like tomohawks and JDAMs?

Calling for air-strikes doesn't mean jack! Heck, even a one-eyed Rebel was calling for air strikes.

[Arnie100]

@bve and Mat_fr, thank you for the answers.

[Mat_fr]

Calling for air-strikes doesn't mean jack! Heck, even a one-eyed Rebel was calling for air strikes.

The first strikes were made by french Rafales and Mirage on the 03/19 afternoon, in Benghazi. First US SEAD strike with tomahawks took place the in the night between 03/19 and 03/20. So we didn't "just called" for airstrikes, we did it and first.

[bve]

France is having a phantom world power fit.
It will pass...

This "fit" is going on since the Capetian Kings (around 1000 AD)... it won't pass anytime soon (at least not as an idea)

[JCR]

This "fit" is going on since the Capetian Kings (around 1000 AD)... it won't pass anytime soon (at least not as an idea)

No
The difference is normally France just does world power stuff for hard reasons, they just have more style so they get away with it.
Bombing people for humantarian reasons hasn't been happened since Napoleon and even he didn't really believe it so maybe it hasn't happened since Valmy.

[fantassin]

Anybody who thinks that declaring wars wins vote in France clearly doesn't have a clue. France is not Argentina under Galtieri in 1982.

France is a fundamentally Left-leaning country and the values of the Left are not militaristic (even though French forces deployed more under Socialists Gvt than under Conservative ones). The recently published Socialist presidential programme for 2012 is 34 pages long and there isn't a single mention of the armed forces in that document.

The only concern in France currently is the price of expended ammo over Libya which is rumoured to be around 30 M Euros. Nobody gives a flying fcuk about wars, the armed forces or military prowesses. French soldiers can die in scores before anybody gets moved in France.

[Universals]

The first strikes were made by french Rafales and Mirage on the 03/19 afternoon, in Benghazi. First US SEAD strike with tomahawks took place the in the night between 03/19 and 03/20. So we didn't "just called" for airstrikes, we did it and first.

You go girl!

[Mat_fr]

That was just an answer to your "France just talked and waited for the US to do something" speech...

[Bidoul33t]

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Yeah, how about you compare the US troops and equipment in those three areas to what the French have out there. Zero comparison.

I don't get what you mean?
There is roughly a full combined-arms French Brigade in Africa.
There are about 9000 French soldiers across Africa (excluding sailors & gendarmes), most of them from shock regiments (Foreign Legion, marine infantry/cavalry), all with air support (airlifting but also with light ground attack helos and transports), and CAS capability (around 18 fighters + recon, refuel, etc...).

As far as I know the only significant US troops around are those in Camp Lemonnier (BTW French name of a French General in a French compound... just saying) in Djibouti and even there they're 1 to 2 to the French in Djibouti.

Those are the units that are permanently based in Africa, they don't have any existence or base in France:

5th oversea combined arm regiment of Djibouti (5e RIAOM) in Djibouti.

13th foreign legion half-brigade of Djibouti (13e DBLE) in Djibouti (to be moved in UAE).

6th Marine Infantry Bataillon of Libreville (6e BIMa) in Gabon.

23rd Marine Infantry Bataillon of Dakar (23e BIMa) in Sénégal.

2nd Airborne Marine Infantry Regiment of Saint-Pierre (2e RPIMa) at La Réunion (Near Madagascar, east african coast).

Foreign Legion Formation of Mayotte (DLEM) at Mayotte (Comoros Islands, east african coast).

They're not in ops, or as expeditionary corps that's just were they live.

Has this politically helped Sarkozy?

Yes, at least nobody notice that in the last election (two weeks ago) his party was at 1 point to be the 4th party of France as both independent right and extreme-right got around 15% of the votes, while the UMP (his party, supposed to be the union of ALL right party & currents) got a lousy 16%.
Everyone talked about Libya and the extreme-right score (which are in fact the exact same at every election since 20 years), but everybody failed to notice there was also a true opposition in the same side as Sarkozy which was something impossible even 2 years ago. To lose an election is something, to lose it against your own side is something else. It also help to erase the fact that a lot of his government were more than friendly with the said ex-dictators.

It doesn't wins vote per see (as nobody give a fvck about what the military is doing, especially overseas, nothing new it's like that since the 1800's) but it does make the media speak about something else than the general trust issues, plus is stance is not a bad one (you know beating dictators, position of France in the world, yadyadya).

[Universals]

That was just an answer to your "France just talked and waited for the US to do something" speech...

Not gonna do a back and forth with you. My point stands.... without US backing this thing wouldn't have happened. Daffy will be throwing party by now.

ps: The article that started the thread is Pure BS.

[MajorTom]

And yet notice how all the dimwits in the world are oddly silent.

Where are all the protests? Michael Moore Films? Conspiracy theories about new world order etc?

I was thinking that where are all those people with retarded "Cheese eating surrender monkey" jokes from 2003?

Naturally the differnece is that those conflicts where France is involved now are accepted world wide and are UN backed.
2003 war was not.

Way to go France!