The French president, Emmanuel Macronannounced this Wednesday the death of a second French blue helmet from the UN force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) who had been seriously injured in the incident in which a first soldier died instantly, an ambush that Paris attributes to Hezbollah.
This is First Corporal Anicet Girardin, who had been repatriated to France this Tuesday after being seriously injured in the skirmish last Saturday in which the head of his unit, non-commissioned officer Florian Montorio, fell, Macron indicated on his social networks.
These are now three French victims in the Middle East since the start of the US and Israeli bombings against Iran on February 27, following the death a month ago of non-commissioned officer Arnaud Frion in the Erbil region, in Iraqi Kurdistan, in a drone attack on his unit that France attributes to a pro-Iranian militia.
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The Minister of Defense, Catherine Vautrin, stated that Girardin was injured when he tried to help Montorio, who had been shot by a militia while participating in a demining operation, one of the missions assigned to UNIFIL.
The unit in which the two soldiers participated found themselves at the center of an ambush when they were trying to remove an explosive device on a road in southern Lebanon.
At that time, they were the target of numerous shots “by Hezbollah fighters ambushed at close range,” said the minister, despite the fact that the Shiite militia has denied its involvement in that attack.
A Spanish soldier during a patrol of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south of the country in an archive image. Photo: EFE/Noemí Jabois
Girardin, 31, “was helping the leader of his detachment, who had just fallen, when he was seriously injured,” said Vautrin, who indicated that the corporal was repatriated this Thursday “before succumbing to his injuries.”
The soldier, specialized in dog training, belonged to the 132nd cynological infantry regiment of Suippes.
After Montorio’s death, France received assurances from the Lebanese authorities that they would do everything possible to clarify this ambush and arrest its perpetrators.
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Macron, who has left no doubt about Hezbollah’s involvement in that attack, specified that it was not specifically directed against France but against UNIFIL, whose mission he considered essential to achieve the disarmament of the Shiite group.
The Lebanese Prime Minister himself, Nawaf Salam, condemned the attack this Wednesday during a visit to Macron in Paris, where he reiterated his desire to clarify the event and put an end to Hezbollah’s ability to act.
The French president, for his part, reiterated his support for the Lebanese Government, particularly in its work against the armed group, whose involvement in the current tension in the Middle East, he said, dragged Lebanon into a war “that is not its own.”
