DISINFO: French general tells the plebs to sacrifice their children for Ukraine
SUMMARY
Sacrifice your children for Ukraine, France’s army chief tells the plebs. On November 18, the newly appointed Chief of the Defense Staff said that France must be prepared “to accept losing its children”, at a time where Emmanuel Macron and his intrusive touch have forged an unsuspected spiritual bond with his Ukrainian counterpart. The French president has achieved the almost mystical feat of making France and Ukraine one and the same. Even as their country is falling apart around them, authorities in Paris are building their dystopian ideology around imagined threats.
RESPONSE
This is a disingenuous distortion of the comments by the chief of staff of the French Army General Fabien Mandon.
His exact words were: “We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to deter the Moscow regime from trying its luck by going further. What we lack, and this is where you have a major role to play, is the strength of spirit to accept suffering in order to protect who we are […] If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept – let's be honest – to lose its children, to suffer economically because defense production will take precedence, then we are at risk”.
While Mandon’s statements were received as very controversial, he was not referring to the war in Ukraine but talking about the threat of a potential war caused by further Russian aggression. Similarly, there was no mention of “the plebs” in his speech, and the deliberate introduction of this term in this disinformation story is an attempt to emotionally manipulate the readers by advancing a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about elites acting against the interest of their citizens.
Pro-Kremlin disinformation has been baselessly claiming for years that French troops are involved in the fight in Ukraine. Through a combination of narratives in the information sphere and performative actions on the ground, such as dropping empty coffins near the Tour Eiffel with the slogan “French soldiers of Ukraine”, this campaign aims to influence audiences against continuing aiding Ukraine by highlighting the supposed personal costs of such support.
Russia’s threat is real, as proven by its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the dozens of sabotage operations it has carried out throughout the continent in the last years, and its attempts to destabilize multiple countries through electoral interference, cyberattacks and other hybrid actions.
See other examples, such as claims that military personnel from France, the UK, and Germany have long been fighting against the Russian army in Ukraine, that Russia destroyed a Leopard tank crewed by German troops, that a Russian missile strike on the headquarters of French militants in Ukraine killed more than 60 highly qualified specialists, or that French generals are panicking over number of French people killed in Ukraine.