Speech by H.E. Sylvie Bermann, French Ambassador to the United Kingdom, at the reception organized to mark the visit to London of the 66 th year group of the Centre for Higher Military Studies Wednesday 8 February 2017 Minister, Lord Howe, Generals, Admirals, Officers, Ladies and gentlemen, It s a great pleasure for me to join you this evening at the French Residence. Having you all here during the fact-finding mission by the Centre for Higher Military Studies, CHEM, shows how much importance our two countries attach to our security and defence relations. They re fundamental, especially in this period of uncertainty and instability we re experiencing. I ll come back to that! Before getting onto our bilateral cooperation and the upheavals of the past year, allow me to remind our guests of what CHEM is and how important this training is for our armed forces and, more broadly, our country.
So, messieurs les auditeurs du CHEM, we re pleased to be welcoming you to London for your four-day fact-finding mission, which is part of a one-year training course. Its aim is to prepare you for the highest posts in the military establishment. CHEM has existed now for sixty-six years, educating and preparing senior officers from the three services and the gendarmerie for top responsibilities in our armed forces and internationally. Your great potential has opened the doors to a very high-quality and recognized training course. This year will give you opportunities to develop your intellectual skills and human qualities, broaden your knowledge of our defence, the Defence Ministry and our national and international institutions, conduct political-military relations and, of course, reflect on the major security challenges our nations are facing all so as to turn you into leaders capable of giving advice and interacting at political level, but also taking decisions amid uncertainty and often in emergencies. *** Your arrival in London is very significant because of the strong and structured defence relationship uniting the UK and France. During the meetings you ve had, since your arrival, with the most senior British defence officials who are here this evening and to whom I m especially grateful you ve seen that this defence cooperation is strongly rooted in people s minds and in practical terms and that it remains one of this country s strategic priorities, particularly in today s unique context. There s no doubt that your meetings tomorrow at 10 Downing Street, at the FCO and at Westminster will confirm this to you once again. This cooperation is founded on our shared history and our increasingly strong relationship. It was set in stone in twenty-ten through the signature of the Lancaster House treaties. Today more than ever, it s a necessity in a world which is rearming and where ever more crises are erupting. It s a relationship between the only two countries in Europe which today combine the political will to use the nuclear capability, genuine expeditionary experience, defence
capabilities across the whole spectrum of operations, nuclear power status and major defence budgets, particularly for research and development. Twenty-sixteen was fruitful for our bilateral cooperation. Lancaster House all reached key moments in their development: Indeed, the various pillars of At operational level, in April, after five years work on either side, Exercise Griffin Strike definitively validated the concept of the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force or CJEF. Our armed forces can also draw on an especially rich network of exchange and liaison officers, some of them occasionally deployed in operations, including in combat environments. Let s remember that this network was further strengthened last September through the exchange of two division deputy commanders. I also welcome the commander of the British First Division and his French deputy commander, who are with us this evening. In terms of capabilities, twenty-sixteen provided us with an opportunity to take bold steps in the area of key programmes. In particular, we signed contracts with the manufacturers Thalès and BAE Systems to produce unmanned naval minehunter prototypes. When cooperation reaches the stage where materiel is actually being produced, it can be regarded as genuinely under way. That s now the case for the MMCM programme, and I m delighted that our navies will have these disruptive technologies in the near future. We ve also consolidated the FCAS or Future Combat Air System programme, announcing an additional study phase to the six industrial champions: Dassault Aviation, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Safran, Thalès and Leonardo. Finally, we ve ratified an intergovernmental agreement in the field of missiles which involves the accepted interdependence of our missile industries within the company MBDA. Structured strategic dialogue was also established last year, formalized through two annual meetings between the strategic directors of our respective defence and foreign ministries. For our citizens security, we must also note genuine progress in terms of anti-terrorist cooperation, particularly in the field of air and maritime transport.
Finally, on 1 July 2016 our two countries commemorated together, in Thiepval, the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. It was a strong moment of unity that gave us an idea of how deeply rooted in our collective memory these ties between our two nations are. All these steps forward were noted and confirmed at a meeting in December of the SLG, the Senior Level Group, the supreme body which monitors work done in the framework of the Lancaster House treaties and contributes to the political impetus essential to our cooperation. *** Our defence relationship is very strong, but it s now part of a context which brings new challenges. The UK s decision to leave the European Union and embark on a clean Brexit, the recent US election with its consequences for that great partner s international positioning, and the forthcoming elections in France and Germany indeed represent the great past and future landmarks of twenty-sixteen to twenty-seventeen. The context is an unstable security climate, marked by a terrorist threat which applies to our countries, and a Russian power which is reinforcing its return to the international stage with a worrying use of force. Against this background, I d like to share a few thoughts with you: 1/ Firstly, more than ever, this situation requires us to have effective military tools suitable for all types of engagement. This is why, for the past six years, we ve been very seriously committed to developing a joint expeditionary force, which will be fully ready for deployment in twenty-twenty. This interoperability we re building with our British partners reflects a very high level of ambition.
It s also important to continue our efforts on the capabilities front in twenty-seventeen, which will be a crucial year as regards the development phase for our major bilateral programmes. I m thinking about the Future Combat Air System and the Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon. I know that Harriett Baldwin s teams are working flat out on these important matters, alongside their French counterparts. 2/ Secondly, I want to turn my thoughts to the other side of the Atlantic. Without wanting to make any judgment here, I note that the new American president is bringing a degree of instability to an already worrying international landscape. This has to be a matter of concern to us as Europeans. As such, Europe s security and defence are becoming more acute concerns. 3/ Finally, the third thing I want to focus on is our bilateral cooperation. In my view, it s essential in these uncertain times to remain steadfast, and highly committed to our cooperation structured around the Lancaster House Treaties. Whilst we regret our British friends departure from the EU, we know that this bilateral relationship remains robust and essential. I think it was Sir Stuart Peach, Britain s Chief of the Defence Staff who is here with us this evening, who said in a recent meeting with his French counterpart that the Franco-British defence relationship isn t optional. This is obvious to us as well! Nevertheless, Brexit raises a question about our priorities and our positioning as regards international alliances. On this, I d like to stress the importance for us of a solid, effective European defence, complementary to NATO capabilities. This is the whole purpose of the joint initiatives taken first by France and Germany, and subsequently with our Italian and Spanish allies, prior to the decisions of the December twenty-sixteen European Council. Far from aiming to create a European army, as some in the media have tried to make out, the objective is mainly to render CSDP missions and operations even more effective in order to help make our citizens safer. In twenty-sixteen we weren t able to eradicate terrorism, or resolve the Syria conflict, or end the refugee crisis or curb the rise in populism, which often brings extra tensions. These threats, these risks confirm that we made the right choice when we opted for ambitious and very concrete defence cooperation.
This is what led us to take part, side by side, in the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, with our operations Shader and Chammal. In the Sahel, too, in the depths of Europe s southern flank, cooperation is necessary. In this respect, Germany has made an invaluable commitment to deploy a very significant number of troops this year to the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Mali. *** In conclusion, I d like to extend my sincere thanks once again, on two counts, to all those people our officers have met or are going to meet during their stay. First of all, those who, despite their work schedules, have helped train our military elites. These officers came to London to sharpen their minds by spending time with one of our great European partners, so thank you for stimulating their thinking. Thank you also for being with us tonight and continuing to have conversations and discussions in a more convivial atmosphere. I d like to finish by giving you, CHEM officers, a piece of advice: keep having your discussions and developing the contacts you ve forged. It s vitally important for our bilateral relationship, an absolutely essential relationship whose vitality depends first and foremost on the determination of the men and women who sustain and maintain it. So, ladies and gentlemen, I d like to finish by warmly thanking the British authorities for enabling this visit to go ahead and be such a triumph. I wish you all a very pleasant evening and a successful end to your studies. Long live the United Kingdom! Long live France! And long live Franco-British cooperation!