“France can not do everything, in the Sahel, in the Central African Republic, in the Levant and then secure its national territory”, French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reportedly said, during a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Brussels Tuesday, where he invoked the EU’s Article 42.7 mutual assistance clause.
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France will revise its security strategy to better respond to terror attacks after a series of shootings and suicide bombings struck the capital city on Friday, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday.
European Union defense ministers said on Tuesday they supported France’s request for military assistance as it intensifies its fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in the Middle East.
France has not yet invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which stipulates that an armed attack against one member state of NATO should be considered as an armed attack against them all. As for the type of support, Mogherini said this was a question of bilateral agreements and technical discussions between the partners. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s defense minister, offered vague commitment, saying that Germany would do “all in our power to offer help and support”.
France will therefore have to negotiate concrete plans with other member states on how the mutual defense clause would be implemented. “Every country said: I am going to assist, I am going to help”, Drian said. “And that is something that, in this case, provided by an article of the Treaty, can be activated”.
Sweden’s Interior Minister Anders Ygeman confirmed to Swedish news agency TT that his country backed the plea for help, but said that what Sweden could offer would depend on the exact nature of any formal request from France.
President Vladimir Putin, visiting the defense ministry’s command center in Moscow on November 17 evening, was told by military chiefs that the air force had carried out around 2,300 sorties in Syria in the last 48 days and that it would bolster its strike force, which consists of around 50 planes and helicopters, with a further 37 aircraft.
The U.S. has brought France into the highest level of intelligence sharing, the so-called Five Eyes program, officials said this week.
French President François Hollande said on Monday that France was at war with Isis.
The spokesman added: “We have been in constant contact with the French authorities since Friday”. “The European Union expressed its strongest, full support and readiness to provide all the aid and assistance asked for and needed”. Mohammed Amri, 27, denies any involvement in the attacks and says he went to Paris to collect his friend Salah Abdeslam, according to his defense lawyer Xavier Carrette.
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Q. But doesn’t “obliged’ really mean “bound to”?”
