They were supposedly discussing a purely internal issue—the military budget of the armed forces for 2025.
However, the chairman of the committee, a representative of the Republican political group, Perrin, made the following statement: “In the Caucasus, Armenia is trying to survive against the appetites of its neighbors.” In other words, Armenia, which has territorial claims over Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, Turkey’s Eastern Anatolia, and Georgia’s Javakheti, is presented as an innocent, suffering Christian country, while its neighbors are portrayed as terrifying and ready to devour this small nation.
When it came time for questions, Senator Marie-Arlette Charlot, a member of the Socialist, Green, and Republican political group, made a notable contribution. With apparent knowledge, she listed the “aggressive” statements of the Azerbaijani Defense Minister towards Armenia, omitting, of course, what caused these statements. She mentioned the risk of “aggression” against Armenia and asked a pre-prepared question about the importance of military cooperation between Paris and Yerevan.
This is when French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu made a series of striking revelations. According to Lecornu, “we opened a defense mission in Yerevan. This didn’t exist before.” Moreover, he said, “we have deployed a team of instructors to train Armenian soldiers—in a country that is still a member of a security organization with Russia.” He also stated that the French advisors have been tasked with preparing two or three defense plans for Armenia in case of “aggression.” Lecornu assured that “Armenia has no plans to destabilize Azerbaijan or seize its territory.” According to him, Armenia is solely defending itself. He also touched on the supply of weapons, confirming that night vision goggles had been provided to Armenian border guards. Armenia was also helped in creating an air defense system and restoring artillery. In addition, Lecornu announced an upcoming visit to France by Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan and invited deputies to participate in the process.
Perhaps the French minister wasn’t taught as a child that lying is wrong, especially when you risk being caught almost immediately. Let’s break this down point by point. To claim that Armenia does not want to “destabilize Azerbaijan” and has no plans to seize foreign territories can only be said in two cases—either the person making the statement is completely unaware of what is happening in the region, or they are deliberately lying. It is unlikely that Mr. Lecornu does not know that Armenia’s constitution includes claims over Karabakh and that its coat of arms features Mount Ararat, which is located in Turkey. Moreover, it is quite shameless for the French defense minister to lie, saying that only “defensive artillery” is being supplied to Armenia. Any military expert knows that the howitzers Armenia is receiving from France are offensive weapons, not defensive ones. We can’t say if the minister managed to deceive French deputies, but he certainly didn’t fool Azerbaijani experts.
Even more shameless are Lecornu’s claims about “defensive plans” that France is allegedly preparing for Armenia. Yerevan is not interested in defense—they are focused on ideas of revenge, even if they try to hide it in their rhetoric.
Moreover, French intelligence is actively operating in the region, systematically gathering information about Azerbaijan. Primarily, these are the “binocular lovers” from the EUMA mission, but not only them. It is enough to recall how an impressive French intelligence network was uncovered in Baku.
It’s clear that the French advisors in Yerevan are not preparing “defensive plans” for Armenia but rather plans for provocations against Azerbaijan. This is not an attempt to “open a second front” against Russia—otherwise, France would push for Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO. But France is not bothered by Armenia’s membership in what they call “Putin’s NATO.” Paris is working against the geopolitical alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey, while also pulling EU structures into its provocations.
The real question is: Does Armenia realize the true cost of these games for Yerevan? Do they remember how every “war with external support” has ended for Armenia in the past?
