France – (AFP)
The AFP learned from the military and other sources familiar with the file that General Eric Fido, director general of French military intelligence, had been relieved of his post due to negligence in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Confirming the information provided by the “Lupinion” website, a military source confirmed that the Director of Military Intelligence (DRM) will step down immediately.
The website cited a source from the Armed Forces Ministry as saying the motive for the dismissal was “insufficient explanations” and “poor mastery of files”.
A military source close to the AFP claimed that military intelligence had been within the army’s command line since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The source added that military intelligence “conducts military inquiries into operations and not about motives,” and its statements concluded that Russia had adequate avenues for war against Ukraine, “proving that what happened was the right thing to do.”
According to another military source, Agency France-Presse, which did not want to be named, news of the senior officer’s dismissal spread within the military a few days ago, but there was talk of giving him another post, which he did not. Will eventually happen.
For his part, a source close to the file confirmed that “we can not attribute this change only to the Ukrainian situation, it is a matter of restructuring the machine.”
General Fido was appointed by Special Operations Command last summer, but his appointment caused a stir within the military community, as some felt it was part of a process of shifting positions between generals.
In early March, Army Commander General Theory Borgard told Le Monde newspaper that there were analytical differences between the French and the Americans over the question of a possible war in Ukraine.
At the time he declared, “The Americans said that the Russians would attack. They are right. On the contrary, our services believed that the war on Ukraine would be too costly and that the Russians had other options to oust President Volodymyr Zhelensky.”
In fact, the Americans gained a lot of credible intelligence about Russian products and decided to use part of it in an attempt to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin several weeks before the war began.
In this regard, Alexandre Babimonuel, an intelligence expert at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris, explained that “US intelligence used intelligence as a means of pressure, and that it refers to the return of intelligence as a pillar of political communications.”
He added, “France is doing the same thing. It says it has failed domestically, within the (intelligence) community and in other parts of the world.”
Papmanuel, however, felt that military intelligence alone could not be blamed, as it was particularly affected by the problem of insufficient resources and the structure of its image and its services.
“The warning is sent to the (intelligence) community as a whole, they need to be effective and aware of all threats,” the researcher concluded.