Among the theaters of operations of the French army, it is one of the least known. The rivers, long relegated to second place, could return to the front line. This is why the military are intensifying their training in river combat. That day, it was the turn of an engineer regiment to put on life jackets. The company specializes in infiltration. They practice attacking an enemy base from the river. Disembark, progress through the vegetation and coordinate your movements. During an operation carried out by boat, everything changes, hence the interest in repeating the maneuver for several days.
River combat has been little used by France since 1954
On this arm of the Rhône in the Vaucluse, the soldiers also learn boarding, a well-known mission of the French army in Guyana, but a great first for the company followed by the France 2 teams. The training serves to erase Errors. The course is also an opportunity to familiarize yourself with a new boat, made up of an aluminum hull eight meters in length. Since the end of the Indochina war in 1954, the French army has made little use of river combat, but many elements lead it to think that it must reinvest the land. “The Dnieper has become the front line between Russian forces and Ukrainian forces”underlines Colonel François Perrier.