General Pierre de Villiers, the French army’s chief of staff, resigned on Wednesday after an increasingly bitter public feud with President Emmanuel Macron over proposed budget cuts to the military.
“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,” de Villiers wrote in a statement, according to French daily Le Monde.
Despite promising to increase the military budget to 2 percent of gross domestic product — in line with France’s NATO obligations and U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands — Macron decided to cut the military’s budget this year by €850 million to keep within the European Union’s 3 percent of GDP deficit cap.
De Villiers issued statements criticizing the cuts and reportedly told a group of lawmakers in the French parliament: “I will not let myself be fucked like this!” according to Le Monde.
The French military is not typically active in politics and occasionally referred to as “the great silent one.”
Macron warned the military that he will not tolerate dissent. “For me, it is undignified to wash dirty linen in public,” he said in an address last week. “I am your leader. I know how to keep the commitments I’ve made to our citizens and the army,” he said, adding: “I need no pressure, no comment.”
And in an interview published Sunday, Macron said: “If something comes in between the military chief of staff and the president, the military chief of staff [must] change.”
