“I Won’t Let Myself Be F***ed”: French Armed Forces Chief Resigns After Clashing With Macron
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jul 19, 2017
France’s armed forces chief resigned on Wednesday, culminating a dramatic dispute with president Emmanuel Macron over defense budget cuts, in what Reuters called “an early test of the newly elected president’s mettle and the tough presidential style he is cultivating.” Last week, General Pierre de Villiers publicly lased out about Macron’s proposed €850 million cuts to the military’s budget, when in an outburst before a parliament committee he said he “won’t let myself be fucked like that,” adding that “I may be stupid, but I know when I am being had.”
In a statement released on Wednesday, the 60-year-old De Villers said that “in the current circumstances I see myself as no longer able to guarantee the robust defense force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country,” noting he had tried to keep the armed forces fit for an ever more difficult task within the financial constraints imposed on it, but was no longer able to sustain that. He added that Macron had accepted his resignation.
The open conflict between the head of state and the chief of armed forces started earlier in July when France’s Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin announced military budget cuts. According to the proposed budget the Defense Ministry would have to make savings of just under $980 billion. The Interior and Foreign Ministries also had to face budget cuts. Darmanin told Le Parisien that the authorities “have found €4.5 billion in savings… solely in the national government” and promised that neither social security nor local authorities “will come into it.”
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