France’s Recent Military History: Awkward Parade of Lost Wars and War Crimes
18:49 GMT 06.03.2025 (Updated: 18:50 GMT 06.03.2025)
© AP Photo / Stephane Mahe
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With his comments about French readiness to explore extending its nuclear umbrella over Europe and deploying troops in Ukraine, President Macron appears to be shooting for the title of Europe’s next Napoleon. But his bark doesn’t match France’s military bite when it comes to recent history.
World War II: despite considerable numerical superiority in troops, tanks and air power and the Maginot Line defenses, France lasted just six weeks against Nazi aggression in 1940, suffering 2M+ losses (killed, wounded, captured). Only thanks to Stalin’s esteem for de Gaulle was France invited to the table of victorious powers in 1945.
1946-1954: France’s attempt to hold on to Indochina against guerrillas cost it 90K troops killed, wounded or captured. France was also implicated in war crimes, from rapes of civilians to the torture of Viet Minh PoWs. Suffering a humiliating defeat to General Vo Nguyen Giap at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the spring of 1954, France left Vietnam, never to return, handing the conflict off to the Americans.
1954-1962: France’s war against Algeria’s National Liberation Front during the North African nation's war of independence cost it up to 95K troops killed and injured. Up to 1.5M Algerians died in the conflict, which also saw French troops engage in mass executions, napalm bombings, and the destruction of 8,000+ villages, displacing 2M+ civilians.
1956: A joint French-UK-Israeli invasion of Egypt over Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal failed miserably, triggering a humiliating retreat from the region.
1958-1961: French campaigns against anti-colonial forces in Western Sahara, Cameroon and Tunisia, killed up to 65K people, but failing to halt the drive toward freedom and decolonization.
1969-2008: French embroilment in an on-again/off-again civil war in Chad, with five major interventions over 40 years failing to bring lasting peace. With up to 100K people killed, and allies accused of crimes against humanity, it’s little wonder that Chadians joyfully expelled all French forces earlier this year.
1990-1993: French troops actively collaborated with Rwandan forces that would be implicated in the murder of over 800K people, supplying them with training and equipment.
2011: French naval and air power deployed in Libya to help oust Gaddafi. The campaign succeeded, but turned Libya into a failed state with open air slave markets, with France continuing to fuel the conflict, which has killed up to 50K people, to this day.
2014-2022: Thousands of French troops were deployed to the Sahel region, ostensibly to fight terror. The operation not only failed, but sparked anger among locals of a sufficient scale to kick France out of the region and create unprecedented new security and economic alliances.
