“Operation Apagan”, the French army in the chaos at Kabul airport – Libération

Bernard George's documentary, broadcast Tuesday, November 19 on M6, retraces hour by hour the delicate evacuation mission, in the midst of a wave of panic, of French people and Afghans threatened by the return to power of the Taliban in August 2021.

A baby a few months old grabbed by an arm and hoisted by an American soldier above the barbed wire of the surrounding wall of Kabul airport. The image will remain as an illustration as hallucinatory as it is desperate of the chaos triggered by the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, in August 2021, after twenty years of war. She features in the documentary Operation Apagan, exfiltrate Kabul by Bernard George, alongside others, previously unpublished, including some toured by the army communications service. The film precisely traces, day by day, hour by hour sometimes, how France evacuated 2,805 people, the vast majority Afghans, between August 15 and 26, 2021.

On August 15, the first Taliban pick-ups entered Kabul. They encounter no resistance, the Afghan police take off their uniforms and abandon their post. This debacle is not, for France, a surprise. For more than a year, the ambassador in Kabul, David Martinon, has assured that the most likely scenario will be a “complete and rapid victory” Taliban as soon as foreign forces withdraw. A fair but rare analysis, at the time