 Good morning, everybody. Welcome. We're delighted to have you here, and I'm particularly honored to be able to welcome Minister of Defense, Le Drian. I had not, I'd known him reputationally, but had not had a chance to meet him until just last night, and was enormously impressed by a strategic intellect and a man of intense purpose, and was transfixed really by his vision for the responsibilities that France bears these days and his willingness to lead the country to deal with these. Not every man rises to the measure of responsibility when challenges come, but Minister Le Drian did. When the rest of the world was watching the advance of insurgents in Mali, the minister saw the essential importance for France to take the lead and to do something significant on behalf of Europe, on behalf of all of us, and we look with genuine admiration on that quality of leadership, and it has been exceptionally important for all of us that he's been willing to do this. We're fortunate to have him with us here today. This is the second time we've had a chance to host the minister, but we are delighted that he's here today. It's a very important time. We hope that he'll share with us his perspective and insights on these challenges that France is shouldering in Africa, but it is for everyone, and it's that leadership that I most admire, and so I would ask you with your applause to please welcome the Minister of Defense for the Republic of France, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Thank you. Thank you very much dear John. Thank you for these warm words, perhaps a little bit undeserved for my person, but ladies and gentlemen I'm extremely happy to spend this time with you and to speak in front of CSIS this morning in visit to the United States. This gentleman hadn't seen the window in my visit to the United States, which happens at a time when our relationship have never been that strong in a long, long time, both because of our action in certain theater of operations that I'm going to talk about because I'm going to especially talk about Africa, but also as actors of global security we have been able to notice synergies of strengthened actions for the last several months, and I'm convinced that the visit of President Hollande in a few days, the state visit will strengthen even that partnership. I have chosen to talk about Africa. I will try to do it quickly so that we can have a Q&A session first of all because Africa is a territory which covers a huge potential of growth and development because it is a territory which also counts in the history of France and the history of Europe. Africa is a priority zone for us because of these historical links, but also because Africa is the zone of all dangers right now. France at the end of 2013 made public its white paper on defense and security which details the perspectives of our long-term strategy which was translated through a military reprogramming which has been ratified by the French Parliament at the end of 2013. And within the description of the international landscape and the questions linked to international security, we put forward both the threats of force, that is to say proliferation, but also the risks of weakness, especially with a special mention to failed states, which because of the absence of the weakness of state structures become sources of instability, violence, trafficking and regional insecurity. And these situations today for Africa are a major threat. African states are vulnerable faced with these risks on the one hand because their individual security capacity for borders and flows are very limited and also because regional cooperation remains insufficient and these weaknesses, these vulnerabilities for us, constitute a major risk. You have whole regions from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, from Guinea-Bissau all the way to the Horn of Africa, which are victims of trafficking, violent art movements, which are way beyond the traditional events in this region. We have seen it in a very spectacular way in Mali, but this is not the only place. These challenges are not local only and tomorrow the entire international order could be concerned by it. That's why France says it was force. We are in Africa in order to overcome the risks of weaknesses. We are strengthening peace and international security. And this is what caused us to intervene in the operation in Mali and these days we celebrate its first anniversary. One has to realize that there is a zone of vast circulation of terrorist groups in the entire Sahelian Sahara zone and these actions by the terrorists can concern our own security directly and is for our security, the security of Mali, the European security and even the world security. That's why we intervened in Mali with the support of our partners and especially U.S. support our allies in order to prevent for this country to become a state that would be totally governed by terrorists and jihadists at the gates of Europe. We intervened at the request of the Mali and authorities with international support with three goals. First one was to see to it that the progress of the terrorists would be stopped in order to avoid their penetration in the south of Mali and the fall of Bamako, which would have happened a few days later. We reached our aim. Our second aim was to contribute to the dislocation to attack infrastructures and concentration areas of the different forces of the jihadists all over the territory, destroying their bases and we largely contributed to that. And then we had a third aim which was to make it so that Mali would recover its integrity, its sovereignty and be on the way to democracy and development and it is the case today. Since now there is an elected president, a national assembly in working order and a state which is in a new mode of self-confidence. It's a country that is reconstituting its forces and which can now see its future with renewed serenity. By the way, let me tell you that French forces with African military support have discovered over 250 tons of weaponry, which obviously we're distant for something else than just the capture of Tambuktu. So it was essential that this operation take place for the security of Mali but also for our own security in Europe and even for international security. The situation today has improved greatly, but nevertheless the risks remain especially in the north of Mali and that is the reason why France has decided to keep in Mali a force of about a thousand troops in the long run in order to have counterterrorism missions if needs be and these counterterrorism actions are ongoing as I speak. Besides, we have decided because of the size of the threat to adapt our military posture all over the Sahelian Sahara zone because it is essential for us to protect ourselves tomorrow from these risks even if today thanks to the UN mission, MINASMA, thanks to the training mission sent by the EU in order to see to it that the Mali army is rebuilt. Even if today we have encouraging elements, nevertheless we have to avoid any return of the terrorist groups on this territory but also on the territories of neighboring countries because what I call the trafficking freeway which is crossing all the zone is a source of permanent and ongoing threats not only for Mali but for all neighboring countries including Libya which is a worrisome place Libya and France and I wanted to tell you here today because it's one of the objectives of our meeting with US authorities and especially Chuck Hagel this afternoon. France has decided to reorganize its posture in Africa in order to have all over the zone larger reactivity a larger specialization so that with the support of the neighboring states we can have prevention actions or interventions in a regional approach so that all together we can make sure that the security of the entire zone is lasting and this redeployment will cover about three thousand troops which we are about to reorganize and redeploy all over the area I wanted to say all this to you because we think that the intervention in Mali is not enough we have to go beyond we have to protect ourselves against different risks new risks and especially tomorrow against the risk of a Libyan chaos within this million strategy and I've already mentioned it we have had the support of the United States in terms of transportation in flight refueling intelligence but also the support of the EU which today is in charge of training the Malian army we intervened first we had the first entry but very quickly we have enjoyed the necessary support in order to achieve our mission we had to act quickly remember now what happened on January 11th last year if we had not intervened within two or three days the penetration of the jihadist groups in the south would have happened and then you would have had the Mali in total chaos total collapse today today when you go to Mali you see a country that is vital even if not all problems have been solved yet I'd also like to mention with you the situation in the Central African Republic which constitutes a new example yet another example of the risks of the weakness of Africa even if the case is quite different from that of Mali since the seizing of power by the Celica in December the CAR has gone down a spiral of violence which with sectarian traits one thing has to be understood it's first of all a political problem it's a manipulation of the sectarian dimension in order to keep power that is what caused the violence of the last few months and first of all it was caused by the client of President Bozise but then the representatives of the Celica in Bangui joined the fray in a country which today is in total disarray I noticed that myself the state in the central african republic has literally disappeared the administration the police justice the chandamery the military have disappeared totally resources have been looted there is a total political vacuum which gives favorable soil to all trafficking to radical movements and to a destabilization of the entire area with collateral effects in Chad in the Sudan in the Congo all the way to the Cameron and the triggering of violence of massacres the exacerbation of tensions between the different sectarian groups before we arrived shows that we were on the very edge of a huge catastrophe the populations have been pushed to the end and this is without any precedent at that scale we intervened at the request of the international community with a mandate from the UN Security Council with a triple mission first to ensure that the security level could increase to see to it that massacres should stop to ensure that crime was going down and I could say today because if we had not intervened back then there would be hundreds and thousands more dead in that state which is at the edge of the precipice our mission is to stay on to make sure that the security level increases we end the african forces set by the au within what is called misca our second mission is to make sure that this very african force can be deployed it can be structured so that it can take over for security purposes in the country and our third mission is to make sure that the transition the political transition process takes place as soon as possible the hypothesis that had been thought first was to provoke elections in february 2015 I think it would be desirable to do that faster the fact that the transition council has chosen mrs samba panza as president is a positive element we need to underline it do we need to emphasize it and the international community should come to the help of the central african republic for its reconstruction and support the president of the transition authority will note it's it is good news that the european union has decided in this framework to bring about its support by having a u4 mission which should send 500 military troops in order to complete the action the forces on hand today and to allow french forces and misca but the french troops also to redeploy more widely all over the central african territory to start the first elements of a reconstruction I will note also that while mobilizing 100 million dollars the united states have already shown their commitment in favor of a solution to that crisis this situation today is mobilizing 1600 french troops there is no plan to strengthen physically our presence right now but we need to make sure that misca has the means for its action and international support will be indispensable the arrival of european forces is part of parcel of that I mentioned earlier that the situation in africa caused us to reorganize our system for action and prevention both for our own security but also for the security of europe and international security and this is also within the framework of the summit of african heads of states who met in paris at the elize summit at the end of last year these african head of states have reaffirmed their determination to ensure collective security among them and especially they have decided to constitute a rapid reaction force under the promises of the african union it's an important progress of course between a decision and the implementation there will be some time and of course some opposition or some events but the political will that we saw there should be supported both politically but also financially in order to make sure that africa is able to face the new security needs that are plenty both within the state but also in a trans border fashion because the characteristic of africa is the porosity of their borders which enables all these groups to go from one country to the other without any problem so this is the problem this is what i wanted to explain to you but i insist to say that for us the solution of crisis in africa goes through the africanization of the management of the crisis but to get there today we still need indispensable interventions in order to prevent to propose africa from considerable risk and also suicidal risk and in this perspective the united states are for france an indispensable partner because we share the same vision of security challenges in africa the same vision of the solution i think that my visit here can also be one more step in the franco-american partnership as to the question of africa this partnership exists it has been fruitful up to now it's been useful it is still useful and it would be opportune to pursue it in the future both at the operational level it has been demonstrated during these two crises but also in the field of training support to african countries so that they can reconstitute their military especially in countries that are at the risk of having state weaknesses and finally for their development because africa is a challenge it's a challenge for itself for africa but it's also a challenge for our security and tomorrow it is a challenge for the development of the entire planet so it matters to us for africa to come back in our strategic debate and the partnership between france and the united states is quite indispensable it is also indispensable for this awareness to take place in europe but africa could be the crucible of a strengthening of the partnership between france and the united states but also between europe and the united states in the framework of a redefinition of what nato should be tomorrow and uh at the summit next september at nato we'll have the opportunity to talk about all this this is what i wanted to tell you as an introduction i was asked to be brief so that we could have a debate and so i'm ready now to have a q and a session to have an efficient session thank you and i'm going to stay here i can sit down there we go good morning your microphone's not on well thank you uh let me try again mr minister thank you for your uh powerful and important comments i'd like to again welcome everyone i mentioned that i look out into the room this is a fan club for you and for uh i think remarkable responsibility that france has um uh showed us over the last several months i know we have many colleagues who would like to offer some thoughts and questions this isn't on the record discussion uh we'll have an opportunity to pass the microphone if you could raise your hand and offer your name and affiliation um because of the translation we ask that you keep the questions very short as well as as the comments um i know dr hamry would like to offer the first provocative question mr minister if you are ready so with that i will pass the microphone to him first of all thank you for a very insightful presentation minister um americans don't know enough about the security issues in africa uh you've given us a very good perspective this morning and i would say sincere thank you you used a very memorable phrase which was the risks of weakness and it came across several times in your presentation the risks of weakness defense ministers are always confronted by the risk of weakness when it's too late and we have to use force i would like to ask you to reflect as a leader of france not just a defense minister but as a leader of france to reflect on this question what do we do about weakness in other countries where the weakness has an impact on our security not just military force but the full range development diplomacy or the whole gamut what do we do about this risk of weakness which pervades the world that we're now living with it is not a provocative question i think that what we notice in africa and it could be the case on other continents but it is especially striking in africa is the fact that when they are decomposition of the state it is a a call for terrorist groups actually and that's how they prosper it was true in mali it is true today in the central african republic it could be the case tomorrow somewhere else and you're right to recall it generally speaking one intervenes in order to avoid that this risks which we noticed spreads and catches on fire on other territories so we intervene afterwards after the state apparatus is dislocated i think that the african awareness of the fact that collective security is a good that must be managed by african themselves should result in the constitution first of all of structured military which are not behovent to clan one or the other beholden to a group and so there is a problem of training a problem of follow-up we have to accompany them support them and this has to be done by europe but also by the international community it exists in part but this has to be done in a partnership with the state authorities and in that spirit but it's not enough i think that we should have civilian missions on top of it working on the sovereignty of the state with the police the gendarmerie the customs this is indispensable the european union has the tools needed for that and thirdly we have to act on the security of their borders to ensure that partnerships between states with international partnership can plug this porosity which tomorrow is going to give us huge problems and i'm thinking about libya right there and for the rest of course there is the necessity to see to it that development is helpful for that countries and does not provoke a flight of the wealth outside of the country so everything is linked the interest of some european missions in these situations is that the european union can bring about a whole spectrum of capacities but also it is the interest of peacekeeping operations from the un and we cannot just satisfy ourselves with an intervention after the other when the major risks happen we do it france is facing its responsibilities but there should be a global awareness of all the risks and all the challenges in that area mr minister i i'm wondering in addition to the risk of weakness thank you so much and the risk of weakness does does the the atlantic alliance does nato have a risk of fatigue a risk of exhaustion militarily economically you mentioned that the sahel and the instability in the sahel needed to be part of the nato agenda for the cardiff summit in september i'm wondering if you could help us understand what items should be on the summit agenda the new threats the new challenges like the sahel and what do you think success would look like coming out of that summit i should be clear as to what i said at the end of my speech maybe i didn't say the right thing nato is a military organization a defensive organization which must keep its mission and what is at stake at the september summit it's at the same time to see what needs to be done in afghanistan for the follow-up as of today there is no proposal on the table it's one of the topics but also that nato should define the way it's going to determine its vocation after afghanistan with the necessity for us to maintain its vocation and this vocation the vocation of nato must be strengthened through the fact that interoperability must be one of the priorities nato must be able to react as best as it can and it has a field of collaboration which is indispensable among us and this should allow us also to redefine the transatlantic link and to redefine as well what is within the competence of nato and within the competence of other organizations including the eu so we have to see that in total serenity and complementarity actions such as the sahel which will necessitate military intervention and a civilian intervention the eu is quite able to act there and so the strengthening of a europe of defense is not in contradiction at all with the clarification of nato's role in the future years so these are the subjects that have to be put on the table with the pursuit of the internal reform of nato which has started and which has to be finished thank you mr minister just one quick follow-up while we stay in europe and i promise hi josh we'll we'll get to questions three years after i'm sorry three years after the lancaster house agreement the uk france defense agreement give us a state of play on how you believe that bilateral cooperation is going and how important has that been to contributing to a more powerful projection capability for european defense i'm not sure that uh if my colleague british were here you would appreciate your question on the fact that the lancaster treaty strengthens european defense but this is your words you assume the responsibility for that we at the end of next week we are going to have the franco british summit which meets every year during which we're going to take stock of the application of the lancaster house treaty they have been progress on the progress towards a common core of intervention we've had some progress also on the industrial or the capacity sector sorry with uh decision of uh pro common procurement and common commitment for new capacities that we needed and i'm thinking about new platforms against ships for instance which have been decided in common there's great progress in the nuclear sector too it's a great progress for us especially to exchange our capacities in terms of simulation it had never been done to that extent but there's a lot to be done yet we think that the basis of the lancaster agreement must not remain between the two of us but it is to be done in the service of common defense for all of us this is not easy there we've noticed that during the summit of the heads of states in europe at the end of 2013 where before we discussed the decisions on european defense there were there are some very restrictive statements from the british prime minister which did not prevent a roadmap on european defense but we see that there's still some ways to go france is very pragmatic there and so am i as a defense minister my position is to say we're going forward the best we can the fastest we can with those who want to advance with us if we start by creating theories then we can have nice talks and conferences but this will not allow us to go forward towards european defense within the alliance which would be capable of having its own responsibilities by itself when necessary and not france alone this roadmap of the european council that took place last December has opened new perspectives in the operational sector including on the necessity to take into account the sahelian risk but also on maritime security and also on taking shorter and quicker decisions in crisis this council also allowed us to identify the possibility of cooperating in terms of capacity there's great progress there in the field of air transport in-flight refueling so steps have been made and we'll have to do it with people who want to go forward with us but we should not cut off any avenue any france is going forward with great britain on some points we can go forward on other points with other countries and see to it that decisions are taken among different countries for different objectives i mentioned some of them earlier at the end of the european council in december now let's open the floor to always see many hands so why don't we take a few questions and then you can answer josh we'll start with you thank you very much i'm josh rogan i'm a reporter with the daily beast here in washington um as you know last november iran agreed to temporarily suspend its enrichment of uranium to the level of 20 as part of the interim agreement last week iran's top nuclear negotiator said iran could return to 20 percent enrichment within 24 hours and yesterday iranian foreign minister sarif said iran has not agreed to dismantle anything my question is can any final deal that allows iran to maintain significant enrichment capability in the view of france be considered a good deal thank you mr minister while you're thinking that very important question i'll take one more in the back right there sir yes please stanley roth the bowing company i'd like to ask you to talk less about africa but more about interventionary capabilities expeditionary capabilities in general in light of the lessons of libya where you the very welcome european intervention was seen as experiencing significant difficulties and the subsequent defense budget cuts that have taken place in most of europe and then united states can this expeditionary capability be retained much less improved all at a time when u.s defense spending is at risk as well mr minister iran operational capability libya as to the first question concerning iran i forgot who asked the question but we are in the stage of inter interim agreement we are not in the final situation right now the fact that sanctions have been taken and that the firmness was there in the last few years was i think an element of the change of political attitude and perhaps also the result of the elections in iran the fact that there has been an opening by president ruhani on this particular questions of nuclear power in iran certain commitments have been made you reminded him us of it on enrichment on a rock these commitments must been verified through a and i a a today does it seemingly in conditions that are acceptable but this is only one stage the final agreement must prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and therefore this period on our side on the side of france causes great vigilance on the implementation of the interim agreement and also must lead to us being very firm on the impossibility of iran to ever acquire a nuclear weapon it's our position we're extremely firm we have demonstrated all through the negotiations we're going to keep that position as to the question on the capacity to intervene well this is also the case of africa it's not only on libya we must be able to achieve a greater pooling so that we can react the way we should it is true in europe where there's a pooling efforts start bearing fruit i mentioned it earlier but it's also true of the transatlantic relationship i'm not worried as to our capacity to act i understood with the discussions i've had around here that there was a certain fatigue in the us as to outside interventions but when security is at stake i'm not worried about our capacity to mobilize the different partners in order to intervene to preserve our security but of course there could be some concern about the absence of mobilization as to what is at stake when you're talking about military budget in europe for instance as far as france is concerned we've kept our level and in the financial situation which is tough because we want to carry out our responsibilities in the long term but this ought to be shared at the european level and this is the aim of our initiatives to reinforce european defense right down the middle and take three questions right here please leo michel national defense university given the united states rebalance towards the asia pacific region and french presence in the pacific territory populations and some military assets how has the rebalance affected your thinking about pacific and do you see opportunities for increased mil to mil military to military cooperation in the pacific thank you irina giles comes down into you mr minister i will ask you about the next summit whether illas will discuss enlargement and according for us which member states are willing to accept macedonia in membership uh michael messetic pbs online news hour last week the president of the republic announced uh plans for new cuts across the board in the national government to what extent is this going to affect the defense and military budgets mr minister as to the pivot on asia pacific i've taken note of it one of the first trip that i did was in singapore in june 2012 and uh during that visit the defense secretary mr panetta had already announced this orientation what we are saying very simply is that france is also a pacific nation because we have territories we're present and therefore we want to participate in all these security initiatives uh all over uh the area and this is happening today uh with uh common exercises maneuvers and exchange of uh information and partnership as to the enlargement on the macedonia it's not uh topical right now it's not uh and as to the cuts in the budget uh for the french budget you said cuts i don't i forgot who said the cuts across the board across the board cuts you said yes we have just finished a very difficult exercise which was that of the military program uh law uh for our budget uh we had several months of discussions and we ended up with a vote at the parliament and this military budget law is determining the commitments for france and the french budget for the next six years the vote took place at the end of december and i have no particular concern about that we'll take three questions we'll take the two down here james and then the one in the corner the ambassador of the central african republic in washington i would like to salute your presence among us and have the opportunity to recall to the whole room that uh the concern that you mentioned concerns mali and the central african republic and the efforts deployed by france in order to ensure security to fight terrorism which involves not only european security but also world security this being said mr minister i would also like to salute the action of france france uh finally arrived in the central african republic in order to put an end to the dangers that threaten our country an american diplomat when i was presenting my letters said the central african republic has no problem but the central african republic lives in a bad neighborhood so the neighbors the neighborhood of the central african republic caused the situation that prevails since the departure of president bozice what do you think the real situation is that the central african republic has been invaded by mercenaries everybody knows where they come from and who they are and these mercenaries uh have uh jihadist flags there are terrorists and so on and so forth although uh the uh ideologies not for sure right now i don't think that it is a large scale destabilization uh but the whole of the sub region should be careful but i have a question about a central african republic military they come from the french military tradition as you know they have been trained in french military academies in the united states and a little bit everywhere in the world but in terms of resolution 28 27 which allows france and miscar to intervene to bring back security in the central african republic what will be the role of the central african republic military in the situation given the fact that the uh beginning of the disarmament actions have not been accepted by the population the population took advantage of the situation in order to loot and carry out revenge why why did this happen because i'm asking a question about the facar mister minister the central african armed forces could you tell us what is the role that uh you think about them i'm sorry we're gonna we're gonna wrap up on that question mr minister we thank you mr ambassador thank you for your presence it's a pleasure for me to see you here um as to the mercenaries they must go some have gone already but they must go for good we don't want to see them back and of course our concern in terms of collective security in africa is to avoid uh the composition of pockets of mercenaries in the neighboring states which could come back in your country or elsewhere this is a concern that should be a concern for the african union as to disarmament this has to be carried out i agree with you that uh it is not easy weapons have been hidden they have been hidden during the day and used at night uh stability in your country will come back only if there is generalized disarmament that it's going to take time and is the responsibility of the new president she has to see to it that misguide the operation sangaris can carry out their objectives to its end as to the facade your armed forces of course if central africa wants to recover its sovereignty they need to have an organized military but the facas are totally dissolved you said it yourself so it is important to reconstitute the central african military it's not going to happen easily but i've noticed and you must know it that a certain number of former military have come back and re-register get a new number with the chief of staff of the faca this has to go on and it will be necessary just like mali or perhaps a little bit differently but in the same state of mind we will need to have a new training for the new central african forces it's going to be indispensable for your security so there's a lot of work and you put your finger on it thank you so much for your thoughtful comments your powerful remarks for your leadership your decisiveness i'd also like to say a very special word of thanks to the french embassy to ambassador gelatra your wonderful staff and my colleague and french visiting fellow jean-francois pactet who was indispensable in helping us organize this mr minister as you can see from your fan club you need to come back we have some more questions for you and we will follow closely the french realignment uh in in the sahel and of course we'll watch very closely in our cooperation at the nato summit in september many thanks to our colleagues and participants and we wish you a fantastic weekend thank you