While MP Karl Olive wants to send the army into neighborhoods plagued by violence and drug trafficking, General Jérôme Pellistrandi believes on RMC that his idea is “an admission of incompetence”.
Karl Olive reopens the ideas box and brings out the sea serpent of the army in sensitive neighborhoods, alongside the police. After the death of several people, killed on the fringes of drug trafficking or during brawls in sensitive neighborhoods, the Macronist deputy calls on Radio J to send the army “in certain neighborhoods”, notably those affected by drug trafficking to cause “a real electroshock”.
But would sending the army alongside the police betray an admission of powerlessness on the part of public authorities? “It is first of all an admission of incompetence”, tackle this Monday on the set of Big Mouths General Jérôme Pellistrandi, who believes that Karl Olive knows nothing about the role of the army: “If I take my dog to my children's pediatrician, I am not sure that he will come out cured. This is the demonstration of a politician who knows nothing about the role of the army,” he adds.
“He thinks that this is the magic solution, that when there is a problem, you have to send the army. But we are not in a context where the army is made for this type of mission,” continues Jerome Pellistrandi.
“The know-how is not the same”
While army personnel patrol stations as part of Operation Sentinel, Jérôme Pellistrandi, also editor-in-chief of Revue Défense nationale, specifies that it is not the same thing: “Operation Sentinel was enlarged during the 2024 Olympics to secure certain areas,” he explains before being interrupted by ex-police officer Bruno Pomart.
“The know-how is not the same. Our armed forces are trained to go into combat. The soldiers whose job is to maintain order are the gendarmes,” adds Jérôme Pellistrandi on RMC and RMC Story. “Shooting a terrorist with a knife, like Saint-Charles station in Marseille, is not the same thing as securing a neighborhood,” insists the general.
General Jérôme Pellistrandi facing the GG – 04/11
And the French armed forces are already taking their part in the fight against drug trafficking “in a much more effective way”, recalls Jérôme Pellistrandi: “They are fighting against drug traffickers in the Antilles and in Guyana as well as at sea. At the end of August, a French Navy frigate seized 10.5 tonnes of cocaine. This is where the army is effective and this is where we must continue this work.
Like his predecessor Gérald Darmanin, the new Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau is looking for the right formula against drug trafficking. Last Friday, from Rennes, he called for “a general mobilization” to avoid “the Mexicanization of the country”.
