“I am in discussion for credits frozen in 2017 to be thawed. This is already the case since Thursday, up to 1.2 billion euros that will be returned by anticipation as of this month”, she explained in the weekly Sunday service.
These thaws, which usually take place in the end of the year, will offer greater visibility to the department and the general armament Directorate (DGA) in the management of their cash flow and payment of invoices, ” says one government source.
“They do not constitute a gift to the armies, but the strict compliance of the finance act for the first time”, cautions the mp LR François Cornut-Gentille, special rapporteur of the appropriations of the defense to the Finance committee.
Florence Parly has also reiterated that the cancellations on appropriations of € 850 million decided for this year, to the origin of the resignation of the chief of staff of armed forces Pierre de Villiers would have “no impact on the functioning of the armed forces in 2017, including for the military operation”. “It is so on the major equipment programs that the adjustments will be made by smoothing”, she stressed.
General de Villiers was sharply reined in by the president and Emmanuel Macron on the eve of the 14th of July for criticizing these cuts to the budget before members of parliament and in a daily newspaper. He resigned a few days later, whereas “not be able to ensure the sustainability of the model of the army” as it considers appropriate for “the protection of the French.”
The president and Emmanuel Macron replied that this was “not the role” of the chief-of-staff to defend the budget of the armed forces, but that of the minister for the Armed forces. The new chief-of-staff, general François Lecointre, is the “operational manager” of the armies, and as such “will have all the flexibility to come and talk to the commission” to parliament, explained Françoise Parly in the JDD. “But on the subject of budget, it is up to the minister to express themselves in front of the elect, because it is not the commission, which prepares the budget, but the government, as provided for in the Constitution,” she stressed.
