ArmInfo.Defense is the most key factor, and the conflicts that have taken place in recent times have led us to this conclusion, French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sebastien Lecornu stated on February 23 in Yerevan at a joint press conference with the Minister of Defense of Armenia Suren Papikyan to clarify whether the French side plans to increase the supply of defense weapons to Armenia, including air defense.
The minister said that he had extensive discussions with the Armenian minister on this matter.
According to him, in the most difficult situations, defensive weapons make it possible to protect the battlefield, for example in the case of Ukraine.
"This makes it possible to protect civilian infrastructure, civilians and important civilian infrastructure. This is especially true for energy facilities, airports, and transport. There is the issue of protection from both drones and long-range missiles. We are carrying out important work to reform our missile base to better protect our sky. We plan to provide protection with SAMP/T systems. As for Armenia, the more we develop our defense base, the more opportunities for Armenian-French cooperation arise," Lecornu said.
According to him, today, for example, with Papikyan they discussed issues related to missiles for the Mistral anti-aircraft missile systems.
"I won't reveal a secret. These are installations that you can learn to use very quickly. And we have already discussed issues for providing the first stage of protection. For the second stage of protection, we will offer medium-level protection. We talked with Papikyan about this, and I just imagine the capabilities of France as in the field of weapons and training. But there is also a question of production. As I already said, there is the highest protection system SAMP / T. In particular, we are talking about Thales radars. And soon the Ground Master (GM) 200 radars will be delivered," Lecornu said, stressing it is defensive weapons.
At the same time, the minister noted that the best way to ensure that air defense is not involved is that "no one attacks anyone." Lecornu stressed that France's priority is to help protect the Armenian civilian population in the event that Armenia becomes the victim of an attack.
When asked to clarify whether France is ready to begin production of weapons on the territory of Armenia, Lecornu expressed his conviction that this question should be asked to the Armenian side.
In this vein, he drew attention to the fact that the French Armed Forces have historically developed according to the model formed by Charles de Gaulle and are based on their own sovereign base.
"That is, everything that we buy and use in our armed forces is produced in France. This is an exceptional model in Europe, since we have industrial autonomy, strategy and can decide on arms export issues ourselves. This is our autonomy, which allows us to have independent diplomacy "And one of the decisions taken by the French president is to provide assistance to the Armenian Ministry of Defense. Today, the priority is the supply of weapons and retraining of personnel," the minister said, adding that in interaction with the Armenian side, the priority will be the operational needs of the Armenian side.