By Pierre Tran

Paris – A surprise announcement from president Emmanuel Macron of the sale of the Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000-5 fighter jet to Ukraine has sparked political controversy and public debate over the arms deal.

The head of state said June 6 on live national television France would enter a “program of sale” of the single-engine fighter when his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the French capital the next day.

French training of Ukrainian pilots would start in the next few days, and take five or six months, he said.

Macron was speaking on the sidelines of an international commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the allied assault on five Normandy beaches on D-Day June 6, 1944.

The French commander in chief, speaking the following day, withheld the number of Mirage 2000-5s to be sent to Ukraine, and the allied nations which would take part in a coalition dispatch of the French-built fighter.

“I will give you neither the name of the partners, nor the definitive number,” he said. “It is more effective and gives less visibility to the adversary.”

France would also train a brigade of Ukrainian troops, he said.

That called for training some 4,500 soldiers, and equipping them with French kit, a military engagement which certainly raised eyebrows and political opposition.

News of the Mirage for Ukraine drew dissent from Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), the rebranded far-right political party formerly known as National Front (FN).

Macron showed “hunger for war,” she said June 7, accusing the French president of increasing pressure, which could lead to “escalation” in the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Snap General Election

Macron again went on television two days later, formally calling for a surprise general election for the French parliament, and dissolution of the lower house National Assembly.

That was Macron’s response to Le Pen’s RN party comfortably leading that day’s election for the European Parliament, the elected arm of the European Union.

While opinion polls had predicted a comfortable lead for the RN in the European Parliament, Macron’s call for a French snap general election came as a political shock.

The first round of votes are due be held on June 30, followed by the second round on July 7, leading to appointment of a new prime minister. Macron will stay on as president.

Macron intended to rally opposition to the far right, and bolster the mainstream political parties, analysts said. But there was high risk the RN could win, perhaps appointing its party president, Jordan Bardella, 28, as prime minister, or holding a key coalition role.

“Yesterday’s (European Parliament) results lead to a political earthquake in France, not so much due to Le Pen’s National Rally’s (RN) spectacular win, which had long been foretold by pollsters, but because of President Macron’s subsequent call for snap elections,” said Célia Belin, head of the Paris office of the European Centre for Foreign Relations, a think tank.

“If the RN were to gain majority or to form a governing coalition, France enters unchartered territories,” she said. “RN’s plans for Europe remain unsophisticated, unpolished and at times contradictory. France’s voice would probably get eclipsed for a while.”

If Le Pen’s party won the Matignon prime minister’s office, it was unlikely she would block the Mirage fighters to Ukraine, said Jean-Pierre Maulny deputy director of Institut des Relations Internationales et Stratégiques, a think tank.

“Macron is the president,” he said, and defense falls under the purview of the presidency.

Le Pen’s priority was to cut immigration, seen as a social issue, rather than military policy, which is a matter for the Elysées president’s office.

“This is below the radar” for her, he said.

A Mirage sale might be delayed if the RN came to power, he said, but the chances the deal would go ahead could be 55-45.

The RN party repaid a controversial loan held by a Russian company, Aviazapchast, daily Le Figaro reported last September.

That repayment stemmed from the €9 million RN borrowed from a Czech-Russian bank in 2014, to pay for Le Pen’s campaign for the French presidency in 2017. French banks had stayed clear of the RN, leading the party to borrow from the First Czech Russian Bank, she said. That Czech-Russian bank later folded.

The French stock market closed down 1.35 pct, with the CAC-40 share index trimming an opening 2 pct drop on Monday, the day after Macron’s call for general election. The euro fell 0.5 pct against the dollar and 0.55 pct against the pound, while the price of French 10-year government bonds also fell sharply.
T

he RN party won 31.4 percent of French votes in the European parliamentary election, beating Macron’s Renaissance party, which received some 14.6 percent, and the Socialists some 14 percent.

Mirage Flip

Meanwhile, Macron’s surprise Mirage-for-Ukraine announcement drew sharp criticism from specialist reporters who said on public social media and private messaging the French air force had said for months Ukrainian officers did not want the fighter, and there were too few units and logistical constraints.

“Now they will have to convince us the opposite,” a specialist reporter said on social media.

There was certainly official concern on the scarcity of Mirages in the French air force.

“We have few Mirage 2000s and service support would be highly challenging,” the armed forces minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told the National Assembly in February, when asked about sending the fighter to Kyiv.

There is a view the French air force could part with six of its total fleet of 26 Mirage 2000-5s, leaving the service with a full squadron of 20 fighters. The service’s Cigogne fighter squadron would be severely depleted if more than six Mirages were sent to Kyiv, media reports said.

Ukraine, however, would need a larger Mirage squadron, to justify the logistical support, analysts said. The Ukrainian air force is getting ready to receive the Lockheed Martin F-16, and already services Mig and Sukhoi fighters, which date back to the Soviet era. Ground crews will need to be trained for distinct service of those fighters and the spares.

France flies its Mirage 2000-5 for air combat with the Mica missile, but the fighter can be adapted for ground attack.

The allied nations flying versions – and potential coalition donors – of the Mirage 2000-5 include Greece, India, and Qatar, while the United Arab Emirates operates the more advanced Mirage 2000-9.

The Ukrainian leader stopped over at Qatar June 5, on his way to France, business website La Tribune reported, and it would have been surprising if he had not discussed the Mirage with his counterpart, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Doha is keen to find a buyer for the 12 Mirage 2000-5 flown by the Qatari air force, the media report said.

Greece flies its Mirage 2000-5 armed with the Scalp cruise missile for hitting ground targets. Paris and London have supplied Kyiv with Scalp and its British version, Storm Shadow. The Ukrainian Mig and Sukhoi fighters have been adapted to fire those long-range weapons.

Meanwhile, France was seen as needing to replace the Mirage 2000-5 sent to Ukraine with the Rafale, which would carry a hefty price tag. The Mirage 2000-5 was due to stay in service to 2030 with the French air force.

France flies 26 Mirage 2000-5s, operating from Luxeuil airbase, eastern France, and the Djibouti airbase, the French service said. They fly missions of air police and air defence, and have deployed several times over the Baltic nations – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – in the Nato enhanced air policing mission.

The Mirages operating from Djibouti shot down kamikaze drones flown out of Yemen by Houthi rebels, seeking to hit commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
France also flies a 48-strong fleet of Mirage 2000D fighters, with a midlife upgrade.

The Mirage 2000-5 flew in the allied Hamilton mission against Syria in 2017. Those fighters were reported to have flown from Luxeuil, as escort for the five Rafale fighters carrying Scalp missiles, two AWACS spy planes, and six C-135 air tankers for inflight refuelling.

“I’m sure that a day will come when Ukraine will see the same jets in our skies that we saw in Normandy skies yesterday,” Zelenskiy told French lawmakers June 7, referring to the  international commemoration of the D-Day landing on the Normandy beaches – Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword, and Utah.

Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have pledged to send F-16s to Ukraine, in response to the Ukraine’s request for 120-130 Western fighters to counter the Russian assault.  Washington has authorized the transfer.

Featured Photo:Mirage 2000-5 jet fighter cockpit close-up. Republic of China mirage 2000-5 jet fighter.Photo taken on:July 19th, 2014 in Taichung,Taiwan.

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The 80th anniversary of D-Day June 6 1944, marks significance for the family of the late Waverly Woodson, a black army corporal and medic who landed on Omaha beach, Linda Hervieux, journalist and writer, told the Anglo-American Press Association, a press club.

Hervieux is author of Forgotten (U.S. Harper; U.K. Amberley), which tells of the combat soldiers in the U.S. army’s 320th barrage balloon battalion, an African American unit which landed under deadly fire on the Normandy beach.

“Why does it matter?” she said May 15 to the AAPA.

Those black soldiers, after winning initial praise for their part in the longest day, were later largely “excluded” from the history of D-Day, reflecting a history of racial discrimination in the U.S. army, she said.

Some of that social exclusion has been addressed, with Woodson awarded the posthumous award of the Distinguished Service Cross, the army’s highest medal, just as the anniversary of D-Day loomed.

“…the Pentagon and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced that Woodson will receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest medal for combat valor — as part of a long overdue recent reckoning by the military about how institutional racism suppressed awards for heroic Black soldiers in World War II,” Politico magazine reported June 3.

Woodson’s widow, Joann Woodson, 96, has campaigned for the award of the highest distinction, the Medal of Honor, and that requires presidential approval, as well as the detailed checks by the Pentagon.

“They want the Medal of Honor,” Hervieux said. “They want the big one.”

That battalion of black combat soldiers brought on shore and deployed barrage balloons, seen as vital equipment to protect the troops from attacks from the air. Those hydrogen-filled balloons were designed to deter dive bombers and force enemy fighters to stay high in the sky, putting them in the sights of allied anti-aircraft fire.

Some balloons also were armed with a secret weapon, namely explosives. If a fighter plane hit the restraining wire, there was risk of not just shearing off wings or getting entangled, but also triggering the small bomb attached just below the balloon.

Those barrage balloons were deployed on both the beaches assigned to the American troops, namely Omaha and Utah.

The historical narrative, Forgotten, recounts the stories told by soldiers who served in the all-black combat battalion.

Epic Battle

The secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, is aware of the campaign to award the late Woodson the Medal of Honor, Hervieux said. Such an award would be something of a victory in an “epic battle,” she added.

The formation of the 320th barrage balloon battalion in the second world war marked something of a cultural break for the U.S. army, which drew many of its officers from the south, she said. That meant most black soldiers were assigned to labor and service battalions, not integrated into combat units.

The Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 changed that, with a pressing need for combat troops no matter what the racial origin. That meant a re-assignment of black American soldiers to combat units.

That barrage balloon battalion was a segregated unit, and the only black combat unit deployed on the assault on Omaha beach on that historic day, the opening of the bloody battle for Normandy.

Woodson was wounded by shrapnel when his landing craft was hit on the morning of 6 June, Hervieux wrote in Time magazine. The corporal made it on to the beach, where he set up a first aid station and gave medical help to dozens of wounded soldiers for 30 hours, before being relieved.

Woodson’s giving medical aid under enemy fire led to a nomination to a Medal of Honor, but that award was withheld.

A fire in 1973 of the national personnel records center in St. Louis destroyed many files, which included accounts of Woodson’s service.

France awarded medals to the American ex-serviceman and other veterans of the balloon battalion, and invited them to Normandy in previous D-Day anniversaries.

Woodson died in 2005, and was buried in Arlington cemetery.

France has withdrawn an invitation to Russia to attend the D-Day anniversary, reversing a decision to allow senior Moscow officials to attend, while excluding president Vladimir Putin.

Some 200 veterans are due to attend.

Several heads of state and government will attend, including U.S. president Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Both Britain’s King Charles and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak,  are due to attend, along with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Credit Photo: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/events-programs/events/129290-320th-barrage-balloon-battalion-african-american-heroes-d-day