France will not send troops to Ukraine: Armenian media outlets are wrong

Yesterday information was spread in the Armenian media that allegedly France was going to mobilize and deploy 9.5 thousand soldiers and military equipment to Ukraine. The information became the subject of discussions on social media. The mentioned news was spread by shantnews.am, armday.am, mediahub.am and infoport.am news websites.

The above-mentioned news outlets refer to the French daily Le Parisien in the article. However, in fact, the Armenian media do not present the article in its entirety, cutting the information out of context.

According to an article by Le Parisien, France has decided to supply more military equipment to Ukraine to resist the Russian attack. According to the French General Staff, more than 9.5 thousand French soldiers will be mobilized by the end of next week. “We will have more than 1,500 French servicemen who will be directly involved in NATO missions to enforce the posts in the East,” the Satff told AFP.

The Armenian media published only this paragraph of the article. There is no statement of sending troops to Ukraine here․ It is only mentioned that the army will take part in NATO missions.

The Armenian media left out the following sections from the article of the French daily, where it is specified in which sections the mobilized army will be stationed. According to the article, 500 French soldiers will be stationed in Romania. In addition to 300, another 100 will be located in Estonia and another 600in Poland. About 8,000 of the mobilized troops should be ready as a NATO rapid response group.

Moreover, it should be noted that France is represented in NATO and it has troops in Estonia and Poland from the above-mentioned countries, that is, new troops are deployed only in Romania.

The French news outlet mentioned in the title of the article  that “Paris agrees to supply more defense equipment to Ukrainians, 9,500 French troops mobilized”, which may be confusing. However, if the Armenian media had presented the article in its entirety, it would not have caused confusion, as the French media reported where the troops would be stationed.

Thus, the information spread by some Armenian media outlets that France is going to deploy 9.5 thousand troops to Ukraine is false.

Narek Martirosyan